Thousands of people were left in the dark on Monday after a power cut hit properties across Folkestone.

Nearly 3,000 homes were affected, with power coming and going throughout the day.

Homes around Cherry Garden Avenue, Park Farm, West Park Farm and Cheriton all reported problems during the afternoon.

Businesses on Shearway Business Park and Castle Hill Avenue also lost power up to four times.

The traffic lights on Cherry Garden Avenue, A2034, near Junction 13 of the M20, failed in both directions due to the power cut.

Electricity suppliers, EDF Energy, blamed the power cuts on a fault to an underground cable.

The problem interrupted supplies to 2,850 of their customers in Folkestone at about 1pm on Monday.

Network engineers worked on restoring supplies in stages to all customer but for some homes, power was not returned until later that night.

EDF have said most customers were attended to between 1.17pm and 5.52 pm.

A spokesman for EDF said: “We do understand how much inconvenience any interruption to power can cause and apologise to all those who were affected.”