MORE than 2,000 households and businesses in Ilkley and Ben Rhydding were left without electricity for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon following a power cut.

A spokesman from Yorkshire Electricity Distribution Limited (YEDL) said 2,042 customers were affected when the power went off at 1.59pm.

She said 447 customers were back on supply power at 2.56pm with the remaining 1,595 customers back on at 3pm.

She said the power cut was caused by damage to an underground power cable in Ilkley. The company does not know what caused it, attributing it to a 'third party' in Ilkley.

Many businesses along The Grove and the upper half of Brook Street were cut off, though some were not affected.

Nicky Greaves, manager of Lloyds TSB, on Brook Street, said the bank's lights, computer system and fax machine were affected, but the phones were operating. However, the bank remained open.

During the power cut, she said: "We're staying open for customer service more than anything. We can accept incoming calls from customers, but I'm diverting them to the Otley branch or to the national contact centre.

"We can't make a cup of tea, but we remain in high spirits."

Another Brook Street business, Clark's, was without lights but remained open. Owner Peter Poplett said the employees could manually process the cash tills. He said: "We can conduct business and even though we and customers can't see colours fully, we're continuing with our high level of service."

Other shops, like Betty's on The Grove, also remained open and ran their tills manually.

However, a spokesman for RW Morten's said the power only flicked off for a couple of seconds in their shop, knocking out one of its credit card machines, but otherwise shop assistants were able to carry on as normal.

While the upper half of Brook Street near The Grove was hit, shops nearer to Leeds Road such as Boots and Martin's were unaffected, apart from a quick flick of the lights.

Marilyn Doherty, owner of Special Occasions next to Martin's, said: "The lights flicked off and flicked back on again."

The YEDL spokesman said the reason that some places were affected and others were not was because "it all depends what sort of feeder they're on. We were able to switch the network around."

The Ilkley train station ticket office was also closed during the power cut and the fare machine was out of service, but the trains continued to run on time.

And the Station Road post

office shut up shop during the power cut, re-opening after electricity was back on at around 3.20pm.