Lights go out for hundreds of city centre homes

A power outage has left about a thousand homes and businesses in a city centre without lights.

Some of the properties in the Deansgate area of Manchester have had their power restored overnight following the blackout on Wednesday, but Electricity North West said hundreds still remained in the dark.

Engineers have restored power to all but 166 homes with engineers on their way to deal with the outage which took place at about 17:00 GMT

Manchester city centre councillor Pat Karney said on X he wanted to meet power company bosses as this was the second incident in three weeks.

Electricity North West said it was working to resolve the problem.

Karney posted: "So second time in three weeks no lights.

"The water pumps go down so we won't have water for hours or tomorrow."

The Labour councillor for Harpurhey and Collyhurst added: "Seeking meeting with Electricity Bosses."

The power company's website said the outage, which has affected postcodes beginning with M15, was due to an "unexpected incident with underground cables".

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