FLOODING in the wine cellar of Marks and Spencer in Broad Street was what caused yesterday's High Street power cut, it has been revealed.

The town centre's businesses, coffee shops and banks were at a stand still in the morning as an emergency generator was brought in by power company SSE.

The mass generator was installed at Marks and Spencer as a sub-station is located within the High Street store on a temporary basis while engineers worked to establish the cause of the problem, today revealed to be a flood in the store's basement.

A spokesman for SSE said: “The generator will stay in the town for two to three weeks as the cause of the power cut was a flood in the wine cellar at Marks and Spencer.

“There's a sub-station at the store that supplies the town with power and the switch gear failed.

“The safety equipment that came with the sub-station kicked in automatically as a safety precaution and the power supply was cut.”

SSE have confirmed that at present it is “too dangerous” for the power firm's engineers to permanently fix the problem and as a result the cellar will remain cordoned off for a number of weeks to allow the room to properly dry out.

Marks and Spencer, who were unable to operate their tills as well as provide lighting in the store, were back up and running along with other businesses affected by the power outage by 10.30am.