More than 1,000 Oxford homes are still without electricity after a major electrical fault this afternoon.

Magdalen Road, Aston Street, Howard Street and Hurst Street were hit by the blackout at 1pm, caused by a problem with a high voltage underground cable.

About 600 homes were reconnected within two hours, but electricity company Southern Electric was forced to bring in back-up generators at 7.30pm to power the remaining homes.

Spokesman Julian Reeves said he expected all properties to have electricity again by midnight.

He said: “We would like to apologise to customers because we understand how inconvenient this is.

“But it is quite a large fault and engineers are still working hard to fix it.

“I’d like to reassure customers we are doing everything we can to sort it out as quickly as possible.”