THOUSANDS of homes in Bridport were left without power last night.

Power went off across the town at around 7pm on Tuesday, May 21.

More than 11,000 people were affected by two issues, A National Grid spokesperson has confirmed.

The outage caused huge disruption as restaurants were forced to close and traffic lights were reportedly not working in some areas of the town.

At 7pm on Tuesday evening evening, properties across the DT6 area experienced intermittent power outages and/or no power at all. 

A National Grid spokesperson said: "Apologies for the power cut in Bridport and surrounding areas. Our engineers are working on the issue and aim to restore all supplied by 8.30pm."

At one point, almost 6,000 properties were affected.

More than 2,000 were still experiencing issues at around 8.30pm.

People reported intermittent outages and a host of alarms could be heard ringing across the town caused by the sudden power cut.

It was reported that most affected properties had full power restored by 9pm.

At 10pm, A National Grid spokesperson said: "We are pleased to say that all power supplied to Bridport area area restored. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by the power cut.

Residents have reported that traffic lights on Sea Road South in Bridport have not been working this morning, following the power outage.

A National Grid spokesman said: "We apologise to customers in Bridport for the inconvenience caused by power outages last night.

"There were two faults on our high voltage network that together disrupted the power supplies of 11,500 customers.

"The first fault occurred at 7pm and lasted until 9.24pm affecting 4,500 customers, while the second issue, which began at 7.20pm lasting an hour, impacted 7,000 customers. Power was restored by moving customers to different circuits.

"A section of faulty underground cable has been isolated on the network and today work will begin in the Sea Road North area to dig it out and replace it."