A POWER cut shut down almost half of a busy shopping street for six hours.

Some traders in High Road, Benfleet, stayed open with no lights, phone lines or heating, but experienced a severe drop in customers.

A fault with an electric cable cut off the power supply to 37 homes and businesses on one side of the road at about 6am yesterday.

Some were reconnected shortly after noon, but others remained without electricity into the evening.

More than a dozen shops, including the Co-op, Santander bank, Rightmove letting agents and Lloyds Pharmacy were closed during the power cut.

Card and gift shop From the Heart stayed open despite the shop being dark, but experienced a drop in trade during what is typically its busiest week of the year.

A spokesman for UK Power Networks said: “Our engineers have been working as quickly and safely as possible to restore a complex fault on our network. We apologise to all those affected.”