The village of Burridge near Fareham was blacked out after a car ploughed into a substation

Residents in Burridge, near Fareham, are without power following the incident, which happened at around 9pm.

The substation is near Swanwick Lane and the area was cordoned off.

Power was restored at around 2am.

A police spokesman confirmed the driver got out of the vehicle unaided but was taken to Queen Alexandra Hospital as a precaution.

Officers are now investigating the cause of the crash but confirmed no arrests had been made.

Dean Bower, 50, retired, lives next to where the crash happened and said: "I heard a load bang around 9pm and all the lights went dead.

"We came out and the silver car was parked in the wall and the driver was out of the car by the time we got here.

"It is lucky there is a wall here or he would have ended up in my back garden."

One resident in Swanwick lane who did not want to be named said: "There are concerns about the volume and the speed of the traffic - it used to be fairly quiet but now it has become a bit of a rat run for people coming from Whiteley.

"Now that the road to Whiteley has been opened it has become a through run."

Another resident said: "I heard a bang and thought it was a firework going off that all the power went off.

"We were just about to watch Downton Abbey when the power went so no Downton for us.

"The lights were still out when we went to bed but I woke up at about two in the morning and they were back on."

A statement from Southern Electric cofirmed power was restored to all local customers by 3.30am.

The statement said: "A car collided with our substation in Swanwick just after 9pm last night, knocking down a section of the external wall and damaging the equipment inside.

"The resulting power cut affected 2,427 homes, but we were able to restore power to all of our customers by 3:30am this morning, with the vast majority back on supply within two hours.

"Safety is our number one priority, and our engineering team has been on site through the night to ensure the public remain a safe distance from the exposed equipment.

"A temporary fence is being erected this morning, and we expect our repair work to last through the week without any further interruptions to customers’ electricity supply.

"We would like to apologise to any customers who were inconvenienced by the loss of power and thank them for their patience and support while we continue to carry out our repairs."