A powercut caused disruption to 350 homes and businesses for several hours.

A large part of Kemp Town, Brighton, was left without power from 11.15am to 5.20pm after electricity company EDF Energy had problems re-routing the supplies while they carried out maintenance work.

Katie Mintram, a director at Yellowave, in Madeira Drive, said that it had been frustrating because a lot of their stock had started to melt. The Madeira lift and the Volks Railway also stopped working.

An EDF spokeswoman apologised for the power cut and said: “Our contractors were due to carry out investment in this area today to replace some equipment at a local substation.

“In order to safely do this, without interrupting supplies, we rerouted electricity via alternative circuits.

“Unfortunately there was a problem with this temporary arrangement at 11.15am which interrupted supplies to 350 customers.

“We have been working throughout the day to reconnect supplies as quickly as possible and the final supplies were restored at 5.20pm.”