THOUSANDS of Hampshire homes remain without power today three days after storms brought severe weather and flooding to the county.

But Southern Electric said teams reconnected 2,500 homes yesterday and were working around the clock.

There are currently 378 homes cut off in the New Forest, 564 in Basingstoke and 53 in Portsmouth.

The most affected places are in rural areas and Petersfield is worst hit with 1,286 homes blacked out as of last night.

Speaking last night director of distribution Stuart Hogarth said: "We would like to thank customers for their continued patience while our teams work in particularly challenging conditions to restore electricity to their homes.

“Despite out efforts, due to extremely challenging weather conditions and existing flooding it is likely there will be just under 2,000 homes without electricity tonight. However, I can reassure all customers affected that every effort is being made to restore these supplies as quickly as possible."

Meanwhile South West Trains has announced services will run as normal today following extensive repairs to damage caused in this week’s storms.

Engineers worked over Christmas and Boxing Day to clear more than 140 trees from lines across the network while there were nine flooding incidents.

A spokesman for the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance said: "We would like to thank our maintenance teams who have been working round the clock throughout the festive period to reopen the routes affected by the heavy flooding and trees on the line.”

The only current line closure in place is between Haslemere and Petersfield where a replacement bus service is operating.

As of Friday morning, the breakdown of number of homes in  areas still waiting to be reconnected was:
Aldershot - 350
Basingstoke - 130
New Forest - 175
Newbury - 100
Petersfield - 920
Poole - 20
Portsmouth – 35
Salisbury - 70