THOUSANDS of Southampton residents were hit by a power cut caused by an underground cable fault.

Around 2,244 Southern Electric customers in several parts of the city, including Maybush, Millbrook and Redbridge, were without power for up to 90 minutes.

A Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks spokesman said: "Our teams were alerted to a fault on the high voltage electricity network serving Southampton at 7.50am this morning.

"This fault initially affected 2,244 properties in the area.

"Engineers restored power to 1,732 properties at 8.06am, with the remaining 512 prpoperties having their power restored at 8.38am.

"The power cut was caused by an underground cable fault which our engineers are now investigating."

The spokesman added: "We’d like to apologise for any inconvenience caused this morning as our engineers worked to restore power as quickly as possible.”