Thousands hit by Lisburn power cut

Many traders had to close until generators kicked in and NIE emergency crews repaired the damage caused after a contractor hit an underground cable.

Valerie Curran, NIE Customer Relations Manager for the Lisburn area, said: “NIE has been carrying out maintenance work to one of our major substations in the city and customers in the area were being supplied by an alternative circuit.

“This is standard practice during substation maintenance and network upgrade work. Unfortunately a contractor working on the network hit and damaged a high voltage underground cable on the circuit supplying customers, causing a power cut in the area.

“NIE emergency crews responded immediately restoring all customers within 90 minutes.”

A spokesperson for Tesco on Bentrim Road said that the store was briefly cleared but that the power cut was only for a “short period of time” and it was business as normal.

While many of the larger firms have back-up generators in place for such incidents a lot of smaller shops weren’t as fortunate and had to close until the power supply was restored.

Lisburn South Alliance representative Stephen Martin said the black out caused a lot of inconvenience.

“This has caused significant inconvenience to both residents and employers alike in the city” he said.

He also said that motorists and pedestrians had to take particular care in the Longstone area as traffic light systems were out of order for a period.

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