A SWAN caused a power blackout to more than 2,000 homes, shops and businesses on Tuesday.

The bird flew into electricity cables in Canal Road just after 9am, snapping the cables and cutting off the supply to premises including many businesses on the Canal Road Industrial Estate.

The power supply was restored to some premises within a few minutes but engineers took until 4.30pm to repair all the damage.

Paul Lamb, managing director of Airsprung Beds, said: "We lost just about an hour-and-a-half of production as a result but because of the flexibility of our employees we were able to satisfy all our customers.

"We lost everything, including the computer system and the telephones. It is amazing what you rely on in terms of electricity but there is no long-term damage."

At Wickes Building Supplies the power was only off for a few minutes but the results of the blackout caused staff a considerable headache.

Store manager Rodney Thomson said: "The aftermath was the main problem, getting the computers up and running and the customer service implications.

"There was nothing I could do then or now about those customers that were annoyed at having to queue."

Julian Reeves, spokesman for Southern Electric said electricity was restored to most customers within half an hour but 55 had to wait more than seven hours.

He said: "The swan actually managed to break the cables. We got supplies back on as soon as we could. Obviously this was out of our control but we apologise to everybody involved."

He said the company does have occasional problems with birds flying into power cables but this area was not considered at high risk and no other similar incidents have been reported over the past year. In areas known to be on migration paths electricity companies use brightly coloured plastic discs to alert birds to the presence of cables.

"Birds like swans see well sideways but they don't have good forward vision and, as cables are designed to be unobtrusive, it is easy for them not to see them," Mr Reeves said.

He confirmed if there were further incidents of this kind the company would consider using bird diversionary tactics.

The swan did not survive the impact.