MORE than 3,000 homes in Darlington were without power late last night after a fault on a section of cable.

Power supplier NEDL said of the 3,013 properties affected, 2,480 had their power restored within three minutes.

A further 343 were off for just over 11 minutes and 189 for an hour and four minutes. The last property had its power restored at 11.16pm.

The spokesman said the problem - which may have been caused by the rain - had been isolated and repairs would be carried out over the weekend.