MORE than 1,600 homes in the county were without power this morning.

A total of 1,650 properties in the west of Cumbria are affected by the outage, which was first reported at about 8am.

A spokesman from Electricity North West said: "A fault on an overhead line caused a power cut to around 1,600 properties in the Maryport area at 7.55am. 

"Within an hour engineers had restored power to more than 1,000 properties by switching them to other parts of the network to provide power while we repair any damage."

Power was restored to all properties shortly after.

The spokesman added: "If anyone has a power cut they can find out more using our live power cut tracker at www.enwl.co.uk/powercuts or by calling Electricity North West on the free number 105."

Elsewhere in the county, the power provider said that a planned power cut had taken place between 9am and 12.30pm in Alston, affecting 63 properties.