A POWER cut affected nearly 600 properties in Poole this afternoon.

SSE were first called about the issue at 1.42pm. The outage left 591 properties without electricity in 51 postcode areas within the BH15 area, which surrounds Poole town centre and quay.

A spokesman for the firm said their engineers were en route to investigate the cause of the problem and carry out the necessary repairs to bring homes and businesses back onto the network.

By 3.15pm, the company said, power had been restored to all but 88 homes, and it was expected that they would see supplies restored by 5pm.