A SECOND massive power cut in less than a week hit more than 2,000 homes and businesses in and around Wellington on carnival Saturday (September 27).

It was the seventh incident to affect the area in four months, including a spate of four power cuts during June, and the second in six days.

The previous outage was on Monday, September 22, when 2,422 properties were affected, including the business parks at Lowmoor, Chelston, Westpark, and Foxmoor, caused when a building site contractor cut through an underground cable.

This time, National Grid said the electricity supplies were disrupted when a farmer driving a tractor in a field collided with an overhead power line pole.

A spokesperson said: “This snapped the pole and brought down overhead lines, which regrettably led to customers experiencing a power cut.”

The outage happened at 9.51 am on Saturday and affected 2,423 properties and covered the east side of Wellington and a much larger rural area stretching through Bradford on Tone almost to Bishops Hull.

While Monday’s incident saw supplies completely restored in about 20 minutes, Saturday’s outage lasted all day for some properties.

More than 1,000 customers had supplies restored after about 15 minutes and another thousand 20 minutes later.

National Grid told customers via its website: “There is a fault on the high voltage power lines above ground in your area.

“Your power may go on and off while we work hard to sort this out.”

It was not until 8.06 pm that the last of the affected properties were reconnected.

Two of the incidents which happened in June were also blamed on agricultural machinery coming into contact with high voltage overhead cables.

It prompted advice to farmers from National Grid, which said it would work with farming communities to reduce incidents involving its power lines.