ABOUT 8,000 homes were without electricity yesterday morning .

Scottish and Southern Electric (SSE) customers lost power for about an hour from 7.30am to 8.30am because of a possible fault in the underground network.

Homes across East Oxford, Marston, Cowley and Wallingford were hit.

Traffic lights between Headington and Iffley Road failed during the rush hour, causing long tailbacks.

Marsh Baldon Primary School was closed yesterday as it had no electricity and the boiler had failed. It was expected to reopen today.

Investigations were ongoing yesterday but the power cut was not thought to have been caused by the weather.

Spokesman for SSE Neil Anderson said about 100 extra engineers were called in to deal with disruptions as the county braces itself for more bad weather.

He said: “It was a brief interruption to the power network and our engineers rerouted the network and got everybody back on within about an hour.

“It wasn’t weather related but we are investigating the cause.”

On Sunday, homes supplied by SSE in the Nobles Lane area of Botley were without power for almost two hours because of a problem on an underground cable.