MORE than 1,000 homes and businesses were left without power when a blackout hit the Southampton area this afternoon.

Properties in the city centre and Totton were cut off when a fault hit the network at 1.55pm.

The Sea City Museum in Havelock Road was plunged into darkness and was forced to shut as a result of the disruption while the city’s Civic Centre buildings were also affected.

Engineers from Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) restored services for nearly half of the properties within several minutes while the remaining 586 came on in stages by 3pm.

The firm has launched an investigation into what caused the problems and contractors are working to fix the systems.

But a statement written on the Sea City Twitter account said: “Unfortunately due to a power cut in the Southampton area we have had to close early today. All being well, we will reopen at 10am tomorrow.”

A spokesman for SSE said: “The cause is still being investigated – the priority is to get customers restored and then they will investigate and engineers can check what happened.

“We apologise to anyone that was affected and for their patience while the engineers got them back connected.”