A HOST of Worcester shops were left in the dark after a power cut blanked out a large part of the city centre during the busiest time of the week.

Broad Street, part of High Street, most of the CrownGate Shopping Centre, Portland Street, Lowesmoor and Bridge Street all lost power at 11.30am on Saturday.

Many shops had to close or run a torch-light service during the intermittent power failures and calls were made today for compensation.

When darkness fell on Nevitt's Lighting shop in Broad Street, owner Andy Nevitt resorted to using a generator last brought into action during the Miners' Strike.

It was a nightmare day, said Mr Nevitt. Saturday is our busiest time. We do as much then as we do throughout the rest of the week.

Yiacoumi Yiacoumis, who works at the Mediterranean Fish Bar, Broad Street, said the power cut could not have come at a worse time.

We were just about to open, he said. Saturday is our busiest time and it's what we rely on.

Both the Mediterranean Fish Bar and the nearby L'Aroma Restaurant had to close.

Dennis Djiallis, who runs L'Aroma and had to turn away people who had bookings, asked: Will we get any compensation?

Inside the CrownGate Centre, stores which could close their shutters by hand did so and waited for the power to come back on.

Although most of the CrownGate shops lost power, the centre was still able to keep essential services running with battery and generator back-up.

The centre's lifts, car park, surveillance and security features were all run on an emergency back-up system, which can last for six hours.

At Julian Graves health food store in CrownGate, staff had to rely on mental arithmetic.

Cashpoint machines also stopped working and HSBC and Abbey National had to close.

NatWest was running a torch-light service, allowing people to pay in and withdraw cash through paper transactions.

A spokeswoman for GPU power said it began investigating immediately and everything was back to normal by 4pm.

The problem was caused by an underground cable fault at the Derby Road sub-station, she said.