A power cut left more than 500 homes and businesses in west Oxford without electricity.

The disruption happened on the day the Queen and Prince Philip arrived in the city, but had no effect on their visit.

Susan Scobie, spokesman for Southern Electric, said power was lost from 11.40am to 1.30pm on February 20, affecting 528 Southern Electric customers in Osney, Botley and North Hinksey.

She said: "We repaired the fault, which was in the George Street and Broad Street area, as soon as we could, and had power reconnected to all customers by 1.30pm.

"We are going to be investigating the problem and doing further repair work over the weekend."

Customers of telephone provider ntl were also affected.

Odette Sullivan, of ntl, said: "We run our cables under- ground and so the fault with the Southern Electric cable affected our services.

"Five hundred ntl television and telephone customers lost services between 11.30am and 1.30pm."

A spokesman for Oxford University said: "There were three short power cuts and we could not make any incoming or outgoing calls."

David Jacobs, of accountancy firm, Ridge, of West Way, Botley, said: "We had a complete system shutdown. Our phone network, which is computerised, was thrown out and all the computers were out."

Estate agents Knight Frank, in Worcester Street, suffered a loss of power for several minutes at 11am.

Charlie Lacroix, of printing firm Alden Press, in Osney Mead, said: "We lost power for only a split second, but it was quite disruptive. We had to reset all the computers."

Adrian Barradell, of the Co-op supermarket in Botley, said: "The power went off three times causing the tills to shut down. Customers had to wait a few minutes while the tills were re-booted."

Lights and computers at the Oxford Mail's offices in Osney Mead also went off temporarily and no incoming phone calls could be taken.

Thames Trains spokesman Jonathan Radley said businesses and services at Oxford railway station were not affected.