Shops and businesses have been unable to open while hundreds of homes have been left without power after Bolton was hit by a major power cut.

The outage, caused by a fire at a substation on Crompton Way has affected areas around the BL2 postcode in the north east of the borough with more than 250 premises affected including local supermarkets and shops.

One of the businesses that has not been able to open to customers has been Pretzel and Spelt a Bavarian goods café, on Crompton Way.

Owner Angelika Searle said: “There’s about 15 electricity vans in the radius and they’re working their socks off.

“There are engineers going from house to house informing the residents about what has happened but a lot of the shops still can’t open and there’s about 250 houses down the road still without power.”

Ms Searle had originally been unable to get inside the shop because it is operated with electric shutters which could not be opened without power.

She was eventually able to get into the shop thanks to an emergency power supply but has still not been able to open the business to customers.

She said: “There’s no lights in our units so now we’re running around our units with our mobile phone torches.”

Ms Searle said that a supermarket down the road from her had also lost power and was closed with “some very confused customers” outside.

She also said that the traffic lights on the road were not working but that this had not been too disruptive earlier in the morning.

Scycles, as bicycle shop based on Tonge Moor Road, is another business to have been affected.

A statement said: “With this power surge it does make doing business borderline impossible.”

Electricity North West said earlier today that they had dispatched teams of engineers to the site and expected power to be restored later on Wednesday.

The company’s most recent statement said: “We have teams onsite and they are currently estimating to have the power restored by 4pm.

“If anything changes, we will let you know.”