Power cut hits 13,000 Wolverhampton homes and businesses

More than 13,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity, dozens of shops had to be evacuated and traffic lights went out after a power cut hit the centre of Wolverhampton.

Shopkeepers in the city centre lost thousands of pounds of trade when the lights went out during the busiest shopping day of the week.

The power cut was caused by a problem with the high voltage section of the network between Willenhall and Wolverhampton at 11.06am on Saturday.

Almost 4,000 properties had their power restored within seconds of the cut striking.

But thousands more were left without electricity until engineers could get on site to carry out repairs, causing tills, ATMs and traffic lights to fail.

Wolverhampton Wanderers even warned that their match with Queens Park Rangers could be cancelled when Molineux Stadium was left without electricity, although the game did go ahead after power was restored.