All chilled and frozen food thrown out after power cut at Saffron Walden Waitrose

Hundreds of kilograms of food are believed to have been thrown out of Waitrose on Wednesday, after a power cut forced the store to close for most of the afternoon.

More than 600 homes in the Hill Street area of Saffron Walden were also affected by the power outage, with electricity supplies cut off at about 12.30pm, after a fault caused when a third party damaged high voltage underground cables.

A further number of residents and businesses will have seen a brief interruption of less than a minute when the initial fault occurred, a spokesman for UK Power Networks confirmed.

As a result of the power cut, all chilled and frozen food at the Hill Street Waitrose had to be thrown away, and the store was closed from 12.30-3.30pm.

UK Power Network said it had been able to restore power to the 568 homes affected by the outage by 2pm, and a further 58 by 3pm. The remaining homes regained power by 8pm.

Yesterday (Thursday) at about 2.15pm, more than 2,500 homes in the Elsenham area suffered a power cut, after a fault on the high voltage overhead network.

Engineers were able to restore supplies to normal for the majority of homes within six minutes, with power returned all affected homes by 9pm.

A spokesman for UK Power Networks said: “We realise how difficult it can be to be without power and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”