A fire at an electrical substation left hundreds of homes in Romsey without power.

The incident began at around 9.26am on Wednesday, when a fire broke out at the substation in Budds Road, causing a power cut that hit about 400 homes in the area.

The affected locations included parts of Greatbridge Road, Salisbury Lane, and Awbridge.

A spokeswoman for Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service said: "Two crews from Totton and Eastleigh responded to a fire at a substation on Budds Lane, Romsey at 9.26 this morning.

"The substation was 25 per cent damaged by fire.

"The stop message was at 10.46am."

The power outage was first reported on the SSEN Power Track website, which stated: "We're aware of a power cut in the area shown, affecting 400 homes.

"This unplanned fault is affecting the local area, and it's likely several streets in the same area are affected by the same power cut."

By 11.51am, the number of homes without power had fallen to 45, as engineers worked to restore electricity to the area.

SSEN provided updates throughout the day, with a post at 12.05pm stating: "Our engineers are in your local area and working hard to get your power restored as soon as possible.

"At this stage, based on initial investigations, we're aiming to restore your power by 4pm on May 21."

Some businesses were also affected by the outage.

Darren Hickman, a branch manager at Elliotts in Budds Road, described the scene: "We heard a bang, there were some flames and there was no power.

"We were cordoned into the building, but not evacuated.

"The emergency services shut off access to the road, and we had to move some vehicles.

"They then waited for SSEN to arrive to turn off the substation."

Mr Hickman added that while power had been restored to Elliotts, one of the transformers was "still knackered" from the fire, and that SSEN was using the business's car park to bring in generators to get the substation fully working.

By the afternoon, posts on Facebook indicated that power had returned to parts of Greatbridge Road, Withy Close, and the Greatbridge Road Industrial Estate.

All power was restored in Romsey by 8.28pm.