Power cuts affect 1,000 households

Saturday 20th June 2009, 10:25AM BST.

Nearly 1,000 Shropshire homes were left without power by two major blackouts less than 24 hours after another failure in the county plunged 1,500 homes into darkness.

The latest blackouts happened shortly before 2pm yesterday when damage to underground cables cut power in both Shrewsbury and the Ketley area of Telford.

A total of 828 homes were affected in Ketley and many remained without power for more than six hours.

Although the majority were back up and running by 3.39pm, a total of 156 homes were still affected into the evening as engineers continued to work on the fault.

Rebecca Bieniaszewska, spokeswoman for Central Networks, confirmed an underground cable fault was to blame for the cut.

A further power cut was reported in Shrewsbury after contractors cut through an underground cable with a digger.

Thirty properties in the Comet Bridge and Stanton Green area were initially affected at about 12.20pm, but that figure rose to 90 throughout the afternoon.

The power cuts came as an investigation was continuing into another blackout on Thursday night which forced businesses in Telford to switch to generators and left 1,500 homes without electricity.

View more: Ketley news, Shrewsbury news, Telford news.