MORE than 1,000 homes were left in the dark following a power outage in Oxford.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) sent out engineers at around 9.20pm on Thursday night in a bid to restore power to the 1,100 properties affected by it.

Due to the speedy efforts of the network’s engineers, power was restored to the majority of homes in less than an hour.

A final 157 homes remained off supply until 10.32pm.

Residents say the blackout reached as far as homes in the OX3, Headington area and were left wondering when their power would be restored.

A spokesman for SSEN Sam O’Connor said: “Our engineers are still working to identify the cause of the fault.

“We would like to apologise to all of those affected and thank them for their patience.

“Fortunately we were able to restore power to all the homes affected within the hour.”

This is not the first time this summer that a significant number of Oxfordshire residents across the county have been without power.

Last month more than 2,000 homes in Cumnor were affected by a blackout for two days and generators had to be brought in, in a bid to get power back up and running.

Following the thunderstorm, which battered the county in July, homes in Wantage were left without power from almost the whole day as they waited for engineers to fix the problem.

In June a cable fault saw more than 1,200 homes without power in Iffley and Cowley Road.

On the same June day another power outage was reported in Wallingford, Cholsey and Wheatley affecting 1,000 customers, which was due to an overhead cable coming down.

SSEN distributes and transmissions networks to carry electricity to more than 3.7 million homes and businesses across the country.

To track or raise awareness of a power cuts in the county visit SSEN’s power tracker here: ssepd.co.uk/Powertrack/