Library picture courtesy John Hoffman

by Lynn Cox

More than 800 homes and businesses in villages on the Hoo Peninsula have been without power since the early hours of this morning.

People living in Lower Stoke, Rochester, and the surrounding areas have been without electricity since about 3am after two overhead power lines came down during the night.

The problems started at about midnight last night when power started going off, but would return minutes later.

One man who was affected was Don Locking, who lives in Shepherds Way in the village.

Don said: "The whole village is out, I've been up the road to see if other people were affected and everyone is without power.

"It started with the power going off and then going on again from about midnight.

"This happened about five times and then at about 3am it when off completely, it's not come back on yet.""

At about 9.15am this morning, UK Power Networks said it had sent engineers out to fix the problem and had launched an investigation to find out how the lines came down.

A spokesman said: "Engineers are working to repair two overhead lines which came down overnight in the Lower Stoke area.

"They have been out since 1.30am making the lines safe and repair work is continuing this morning.

The damaged lines interrupted power supplies to 849 customers from about 3am, and some people noticed intermittent supplies before then.

"We will be restoring services as quickly as is safely possible.

"We would like to apologise for the inconvenience this has caused, and assure customers that we are investigating the causes of the lines coming down."