Southern Electric says there are 90 properties still without power in Devizes following the incident in an electrical sub-station in Avon Road earlier today.

Power went off at 11.55am and affected 1,285 properties.

Police and fire officers attended after reports of three loud explosions coming from the sub-station.

Firefighters from Devizes and Melksham checked the sub-station with engineers at Southern Electric and found there had been a fire in an electrical transformer which was out on arrival, believed to have been caused by an electrical fault.

Police and firefighters left shortly before 12.30pm.

A spokesman for Southern Electric said the problem in the sub-station was due to a large fuse that blew.

The spokesman said: “When they blow these fuses make a big bang noise, but there was no explosion at the sub-station.

"An engineer repaired the fuse but found a secondary fault on the network and this means there are 90 properties without electricity.

"We are working to restore power and we hope to have every customer’s electricity back on fairly shortly.”

Engineers were earlier re-routing electricity supplies to customers to restore power to properties.

Some town centre businesses experienced power surges with flickering of lights and computers going off but they did not lose power.