A PIGEON left town centre shoppers in the dark for several hours when it caused a power cut.

About 5,000 customers, in Bishop Auckland and Witton Park, were left without electricity on Saturday morning.

The power cut, which lasted more than four-and-a-half hours, was blamed on a pigeon causing a short circuit in an overhead power cable.

Shops and businesses in the main shopping area in Bishop Auckland lost thousands of pounds in trade after being forced to close for the morning.

Karen Dunn, manageress of Classic Amusements, said traders had been expecting a busy morning, because of the England football match in the afternoon.

She said: "I suppose things like this happen, but it is annoying, especially because it's not usually this busy on a Saturday morning."

Ann Teasdale, manager of the Vodafone store, said: "We will have lost a lot of business. You could see people going up the street trying shop doors, and a lot of them will have jumped on buses to Darlington."

Some of the bigger stores, including Asda and Morrisons, kept going on emergency generators, and the hospital also had its own back-up.

Some stores carried on without power. Dewhurst the Butcher, in the Newgate Centre, put out candles in its shop so it could continue serving.

The Castlegate Caf cooked on gas rings.

A spokesman for electricity distributor NEDL said a pigeon caused the original fault at 9am, affecting 3,450 customers.

Another fault caused during an attempt to restore power meant a further 1,400 customers lost electricity just before 11am.

They had their power restored at 12.20pm and supply to the remaining customers returned gradually, with the last town centre premises restored at just after 1.30pm