Homes in Great Lever have been without electricity for nearly 18 hours after a damaged cable and gas leak left the area without power last night.

An underground fault in Anfield Road caused a power cut in 40 properties at around 4.30pm yesterday.

Electricity North West engineers were onsite within the hour and tried to get the power back on by replacing fuses in the local substation.

However, the fault had damaged an underground cable and in order the repair it 100 customers had to go without electricity.

At around 10.30pm the teams discovered a gas leak and temporally had to stop works whilst the gas board carried out repairs.

Electricity was returned to the majority of homes by 11pm but some have been without power for the duration of the fault, with engineers needing to dig underground to reach the cable

Work has continued this morning with a new cable being installed.

It was hoped to have all power restored before 11am.

A spokesperson for Electricity North West said: “We would like to thank our customers for their continued patience during the fault and apologise for any inconvenience the interruption this has caused.”