Hundreds of homes in Ipswich have had their power restored after an electricity fault cut them off this morning.

UK Power Networks, which owns and maintains the power cables in Suffolk, has said the issues was first encountered at around 4.20am.

Affecting properties in the IP1 6 postcode area it was caused by a fault with an underground high-voltage cable.

The company estimated 366 of its customers, including at least one school, had been hit by the problem.

It was initially thought power would be restored by around 11am, but this was later revised to 1.30pm.

In the end all properties were reconnected by 12.30pm, more than eight hours after the initial fault.

At the time a spokesman for the company said: “A piece of network equipment has developed a fault and needs to be replaced, so we are organising alternative supply routes to restore supplies to homes and businesses affected in the Meredith Road, Kipling Road and Browning Road area.

“We will restore the power as soon as possible, in stages. We realise how difficult it can be to be without power especially in winter months, and apologise for the inconvenience caused.”

Medi Siavash, manager at Al’s Cafe in Meredith Road, said the business had taken just £100 during the outage when it would normally bring in up to £600.

“All the morning breakfast customers and the early lunch customers we lost,” he said. “We couldn’t really make any money today.

“It was absolutely ridiculous. It’s normally a busy place. My boss wasn’t impressed at all.”

Whitton Community Primary School confirmed it would not open at all yesterday because of the problem.

A message posted on its Twitter account initially said: “School will be closed for the morning as power will not be returned until later. We will open at 1pm, please spread the word.”

However this was later updated to say: “Now not due back on until 1.30. School is freezing so we’re going to stay closed for the day. Sorry everyone, back to normal tomorrow.”

There was also an outage in the IP6 9 area of Suffolk, around Otley.

The spokesman added: “Engineers are on their way to site following a fault on the electricity network system in the Otley area.

“Around 21 customers would have seen an interruption to their power at 8.30am this morning.”

The properties affected by this outage were reconnected by around 11.30am.