A total of 2,500 homes and businesses in Chelmsford were left without electricity on Thursday, when an underground cable fault caused a power cut.

The fault occurred in an 11,000 volt underground cable between Widford sub station and the Widford Industrial Estate at 3pm.

Around 500 customers were back on line within 30 minutes, with the rest following later, according toa spokesperson for power providers 24Seven.

The loss of power followed a similar incident on Wednesday afternoon when 700 customers were affected and power wasn't fully restored for three hours.

A number of businesses in the area were affected, with Marconi reporting computer problems and Todd Research, X ray manufacturers, were forced to stop all work.

Speaking at the time of the power cut, Ben Hall, marketing manager, said: "All our PCs are down at the moment, we can't access the database, the phone lines are down too and we're all sat here in the dark. But there's nothing anyone can do. It's put a stop to business."

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