A power failure left more than 3,500 properties in the Malvern area without electricity for two and a half hours.

Homes and businesses were cut off from 8am to 10.30am on Tuesday (June 12), when a fault occurred on an underground cable.

A total of 3,673 properties were affected in Cradley, Lower Dingle, West Malvern Road, Worcester Road, Moorlands Road and Newtown Road.

Staff at H Preston Professional Video, in Worcester Road, started work at 8.30am but found their phone systems and computers were down.

Assistant manager Andy Davies said: "The majority of our work now is web or e-mail-related so the cut caused quite serious problems for us. We were quite peeved.

"We could well have lost quite a bit of business because of it as each phone call is precious. It could have been someone ordering a fuse, or a bulk order for professional equipment."

Northleigh and St James's primary schools were both affected, although with less serious consequences.

"We couldn't use the computers and the telephones were down," said Christine Campbell, headteacher at St James's in West Malvern Road.

"The children couldn't have their IT lessons but generally they weren't affected. Had it been the middle of winter it could have been a problem.

"The worst effect was that there was no coffee!"

A spokesman for GPU Power said that cuts such as this were rare and that teams were available 24 hours a day to fix any faults that occurred as quickly as possible.