AROUND 900 homes and businesses in Burnley were left without power yesterday.

Electricity North West said the power cut was caused by an underground cable fault.

The outage hit businesses and homes in St James’ Street, St James’ Row, Accrington Road and Piccadilly Road.

Traffic lights in the centre of the town also stopped working and Kitchens service station, in Trafalgar Street, had to close for 45 minutes until the fault was repaired.

The Co-operative Bank in St James’ Street was also affected.

Keith Wilson, from Twinplas Gutter Profile Ltd, in Trafalgar Street, said: “The power was out for about half an hour. It didn’t have too much of an effect on us to be honest but our machines were down for about half an hour.

“The power was restored pretty quickly as we were able to be switched from one generator to another.”

Burnley resident Sharon Pickles said: “I was visiting a friend in Piccadilly Road and suddenly the power cut out at their house.

“It was a bit surprising and we had no idea how long it would go on. The power ended up only being out for a short while really but I think it affected a lot of people in the street.

“It was weird not having any power for almost an hour and it’s amazing how much you can't do without it.” A spokeswoman from the supplier said: “We received calls shortly after 2pm of a power cut in Burnley town centre.

“Engineers reported to the scene where they worked to repair the fault.

“The outage was caused by a fault with an underground cable.

“Around 810 properties had their power restored after 40 minutes.

“Engineers worked to fully restore power to the area.”