RESIDENTS suffered a 14-hour power cut after engineers burst a water main while carrying out repairs.

A group of 16 households on Douglas Place, Blackburn, lost electricity at about 8.15am on Sunday due to an underground fault, but while fixing the issue, engineers from Electricity North West damaged a mains water pipe, leaving seven residents also without water for nearly 10 hours.

James Roberts, 60, was visiting his daughter who was one of the residents affected.

He said: “When the power went off, there was no communication to anybody so we were ringing around landlords and maintenance and then we got told there was a problem and that the power should be back about 4pm.

“The communication was sporadic. They started off saying it would be repaired at 4pm then they said 6pm then 8pm before it came back on just before 11pm.

“It was horrible. My daughter's got three young kids and because the electric is needed to fire up the boiler, without electric the boiler wouldn’t run.”

The power was not restored for over 14 hours, with homes finally getting electricity again at about 10.25pm, and the seven homes were left without water from 2.30pm until around midnight.

A spokesperson for Electricity North West said: “Unfortunately, whilst carrying out the repair, a water main was damaged. For safety reasons, the repair was delayed until United Utilities were able to attend site. Once safe to do so, engineers resumed work and power was restored to all properties at 10:24pm.”

A spokesperson for United Utilities said: “Electricity North West informed us they had damaged the pipe in Douglas Place at about 2.30pm on Sunday. We sent out a repair team and fixed it later the same day.

“Fortunately, most people’s supplies were not affected but the pipe did need to be shut down for a short while to around seven homes which were nearest the damage while we did the work.

“Everyone was back to normal shortly afterwards but it was very inconvenient for them and we are sorry about that."

“We may need to come back to do some repairs to a valve but if this is likely to have any impact on local people we will let them know.”