TIPTREE residents have reportedly been left without power for nearly 16 hours after a fault on an underground electricity cable left them in the dark.

UK Power Networks, the energy provider for London and the east of England, received a report of a power cut at about 9.30pm on Sunday evening.

According bosses the company was not aware of any planned power cut but deployed engineers to the scene shortly before midnight as soon as they found out.

Investigations were carried out until the early hours of the morning with a fault on an underground electricity cable being identified as the root cause of the problem.

Gazette: At fault – parts of Tiptree have been affected after there was a fault with an underground cableAt fault – parts of Tiptree have been affected after there was a fault with an underground cable (Image: UK Power Networks)

Since then residents in the CO5 0 area of Colchester are understood to have been left without electricity.

A spokesman for UK Power Networks said: "We're sorry for any disruption this may have caused you.

"We didn’t know in advance there would be a power cut but now that we know, our teams will do everything they can to get your power back quickly.

"We're working to give you a more specific time for when your power will be back on.

"As soon as we get an update from our engineers we will display a time."