There’s a light that finally went out*

It all went dark as Hoylake suffers a power cut.

For around 75 minutes on Wednesday evening from 18:50 much of Hoylake was in complete darkness due a power cut.

Most properties on the promenade side of Market Street had no power due to an underground cable fault. Along Market Street, shops and offices from Hoylake Library up to Meols Drive were affected but in the other direction towards Meols everything looked okay. Some pubs and bars were lit by candles though the aptly named Hoylake Lights pub (Wetherspoons) was unaffected.

Evidently different properties are on different cable sources as our house had no power yet neighbours yards away were perfectly fine. This was confirmed to me by SP Energy Networks who also informed me that there was underground cable fault between Meols Parade and Orange Grove (the name their equipment has been given; some years ago presumably). Power was restored at 20:02.

[UPDATE]: As I type this (Thursday 6pm) I understand that there’s a second power failure affecting a smaller number of properties in the vicinity of Market Street. Engineers are attempting to fix the problem.

How were you affected? Dinner half-cooked? A cold shower? No heating? Have your say in the comments below.

*There’s a street lamp in our road that’s been on constantly, day and night, for at least four years now (yes, I’ve mentioned it to Streetscene) and it finally went out last night. And as you can see, it’s back on.  And it’ll be back for good no doubt.