Power has been restored to hundreds of homes and businesses in Rochester following a number of electrical faults.

More than 1,000 were without power on Friday following a fire.

Firefighters were called to a small substation in Eastgate Terrace around 2am following the fault.

Three fire engines were called after an engineer investigating the power cut noticed the building was full of smoke.

A spokesman for Kent Fire and Rescue Service said: “We entered the building wearing breathing apparatus and extinguished the fire and ventilated the substation. We were on the scene for one hour.”

In total, 1,696 homes and businesses in the High Street area were without electricity from 1.20am.

A spokesman for UK Power Networks said: "At 1.19am yesterday we had to isolate electricity supplies to 1,696 customers in the area for after a fault occurred on an electricity cable at a substation.

"Engineers restored supplies to all except 179 customers within 38 minutes and the final customers had power again by 4.25am.

"As it was not possible to complete an immediate repair, power was rerouted to everyone in the quickest way possible via alternative circuits."

A few hours later 347 homes and businesses in the High Street, Corporation Street and Crow Lane were hit by a second power cut when one of the alternative supplies developed a fault.

It started at 9.30am and power was restored in stages between 4.45pm and 1.47am on Saturday morning.

Fieldstaff Antiques was one of the businesses which had to close due to the problems. Rochester Library was also shut.

"We understand how difficult it is being without electricity and our customer advisers called customers who had contacted us to keep them updated while our engineers worked round the clock to restore electricity supplies in the quickest way possible," the UK Power Networks spokesman added.

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