Colleagues had worked tirelessly through the night to restore our customers earlier this morning after floodwater breached flood defences at Lancaster's main substation just before 23:00 on Saturday cutting power to the towns.

We have been working onsite throughout the day but unfortunately due to unforeseen flood damage at that site a significant fault has occurred. We are calling for extra generators and engineers from across the country to help us to restore power to our customers.

We are committed to getting customers back on supply as soon as possible but cannot yet confirm when power will be restored, but we will issue a further update at 20:30 hours.

Mark Williamson, operations director for Electricity North West, said: “Unfortunately power has been lost to customers in Lancaster and surrounding areas due to unforeseen flood damage at our substation.

“We are onsite and investigating the cause and we will update customers as soon as we find out more and again we would like to thank our customers for their patience and support during what continues to be an enormously challenging time for everyone involved.”

19,000 customers in Lancaster are still being supplied by generators that were mobilised overnight.

2,657 properties remain without power in Cumbria, where floodwater is restricting access for Electricity North West teams.

Flood defences at Kendal and Carlisle substations have held, protecting supplies to 110,000 homes.

Vulnerable customers, including some older or disabled people, or those with a medical dependency on electricity, can also sign up to the Priority Services Register or contact Electricity North West on 0800 195 4141.

For updates please visit @ElectricityNW, visit www.enwl.co.uk or call 0800 195 4141.