AN ELECTRICAL substation caught fire in Hullbridge this afternoon.

The Ferry Road site was completely alight for over an hour from 2.30pm.

Two fire crews from Rayleigh Weir spent until 3.45pm tackling the fire.

A spokesman for UK Power Networks said that their engineers "are working as quickly and as safely as possible to restore electricity supplies to the 103 customers who are currently without power following a fire at a substation in Ferry Road, Hullbridge."

"Originally around 2,800 customers had their electricity supplies interrupted  - almost 1,000 had their power restored within 15 minutes, and all bar the remaining 103 customers had their electricity supplies restored in stages by 15.40. We hope to have the remaining customers reconnected shortly.

"We appreciate how difficult it can be to lose power and would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused by this incident. We are currently investigating the cause of the fire."