Thousands of homes have been hit by a power cut after a suspected fault with the underground network.

According to the UK Power Networks website, the outage has mainly affected large parts of Folkestone as well as some other postcodes in other parts of the county.

Power is gradually being restored to affected properties, and it is hoped the issue will be resolved this afternoon.

"Our engineers are on their way," UK Power Networks says in its website.

"At this point we think the issue is a fault on the underground network that initially interrupted power to several thousand properties."

An update at 12.24pm says there is more work required than originally anticipated before they can restore the power.

"The estimated timeframe to restore your power is now between 2.30pm and 3.30pm. We're sorry this is taking longer than expected, and we'll continue to keep you up to date."

Power was restored at just after 3pm.

Read more: All the latest news from Folkestone