POWER has returned to Salisbury after an outage across the city.

Restaurants, banks and hairdressers were among the businesses which all had to close suddenly when the power cut happened at 9.37am this morning. It also affected traffic lights and public transport.

Businesses were told the power would not be back on until lunch time but were relieved to find energy companies were able to fix the problem within 30 minutes.

A Southern Electric spokesman said 1,211 customers had been affected,

She said: "Power was all restored at 10.10am. We don't believe there was any actual damage to the network but we have despatched engineers to Winchester Street to investigate."

Salisbury Reds quality controller Adam Lamb said: “I had to get out of the office running the buses manually as there was no satellite communication.

“We had to rely on drivers phoning in if there were problems or accidents which you would expect as the traffic lights were out and roundabouts were running autonomously relying on people’s skills.”

Staff manager at McDonald’s Frank Holcik said: “All the food went to waste but there was more of a problem with sales.

“We apologised to customers as we had to send them away.

“We’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and started to prepare the lunch.”

Herbert’s Hair stylist Maureen Hansford said they were having to turn clients away due to the power cut.

“I had to send a lady home as there was no electricity to dry her hair,” she said.

NatWest posted signs on their doors, saying they would reopen around 12.45pm.

Lloyds Bank manager Sheree Whorlow said: “We needed to close because it was a health and safety issue.

“We were told it was a major incident and they hoped to fix it as soon as possible.”

The power was restored at 10.10am.