More than 800 homes in Exmouth were without electricity earlier this morning, after a fault occurred in a Withycombe Raleigh power station

Some 848 homes in the Withycombe Raleigh area were yesterday without electricity for almost an hour following a problem with a transformer at the nearby substation.

Western Power carried out remedial work and engineers are planning to carry out full repairs over the weekend.

The electricity company said the essential work would not affect the service to its customers and the power would remain switched on while the equipment was fixed.

A Western Power spokeswoman said: “We had a fault in that part of the equipment in the sub station that affected the electricity.

“We were able to put people back on from an alternative local source.”

“We have to repair the equipment and we will be doing that at the weekend but people won’t be affected.”

Western Power engineers were called after scores of residents contacted the electricity company to report the fault, which occurred shortly before 8.30am.

The electricity company said power returned to most of the homes shortly before 9am.

Power to the remaining homes had returned by 9.10am, Western Power said.

A Withycombe Raleigh resident, who did not want to be named, said: “The radio went off at 8.15am. I put my fuse box right and there was still no power.

“I phoned Western Power and got the standard message saying ‘we have currently got power failures in Exmouth’ so I thought as they already know, there was no need for me to report it.”