ALMOST 1,000 properties in Clitheroe suffered a power cut yesterday.

Engineers from Electricity North West worked to restore power to the homes after being made aware of the fault shortly before 2pm.

The engineers managed to restore power to 500 homes shortly after arriving in the town but took almost four more hours to restore the power to the remaining 400 homes.

A spokesman said that the fault was caused with the high voltage cables over head which also affected the low voltage cables, causing the wide-spread outage.

The engineers were alerted to the problem after the failure of the high voltage cables triggered an automatic alarm in the control room.

The majority of the houses affected were on the outskirts of the Ribble Valley town.

Clitheroe resident Nigel Grant said that the power had been off at his house for around 40 minutes.