Portchester power cut caused by Cranleigh Road contractors striking cable'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹'‹

A contractor carrying out off site works at the 120-home Cranleigh Road development struck an electricity cable which left businesses and homes without power for several hours.

A spokesman for Persimmon Homes South Coast said: '˜The contractor appointed to undertake the off-site Section 278 works related to the development, unfortunately struck a cable in the process of undertaking these works. 

'˜The respective service provider has been informed and we are working with them to have the service restored as quickly as possible. 

'˜We do apologise on behalf of the contractor for any inconvenience that this may have caused local residents.'

Mark Matthews works in the area and his business was affected by the lack of power.

He said: '˜I can't do anything until the power is back on and it has affected all the businesses on Wicor Mill Lane as well.

'˜I imagine lots of the houses have been left without power as well.

'˜It is really annoying that this has happened.'

Engineers from Scottish and Southern Electric Network were sent out to restore power.

The SSEN website said: '˜We apologise for the loss of supply. We currently have a fault affecting the areas listed.

'˜Our engineers are on site working to get the power back on as quickly as they can.

'˜If you need more information, please call us on 0800 072 7282 and quote reference 'EU0202'

The known areas affected were PO16, PO16 9BY, PO16 9BZ, PO16 9DH, PO16 9DP, PO16 9DR, PO16 9DW, PO16 9ET, PO16 9QT, PO16 9QU.