HOMES and businesses in Harrow town centre have been hit by a black out.

More than 300 UK Power Networks customers have been without electricity since around 11.30am, with almost 1,500 initially affected.

Councillor Husain Akhtar (Cons/Canons) lives in Wellesley Road and said he is still without access to electronic appliances, including his computer and cooker.

He said: “We've lost electricity for about an hour-and-a-half now. It affects me because at that very time I was dealing with a resident's inquiry through email and receiving emails, which created some problems.

“I hope it will come back very soon otherwise it's going to cause quite a lot of problems.”

St George's Shopping Centre was left running off a back up generator for around five minutes, with doors and the car park temporarily out of service, and neighbouring St Ann's was affected for a similar period of time.

In total 55 UK Power Networks customers saw their electricity restored within an hour and another 1,070 were back up and running within two.

Phil Spiby, a spokesman for the company, said: “We would like to reassure the remaining customers we are working to restore their supplies as quickly as is safely possible and apologise for any inconvenience.”