A BADGER or some other small mammal is thought to have caused a power cut which affected 60,000 homes in central Wiltshire last Wednesday.

Power to homes and businesses in Devizes, Bradford on Avon, Trowbridge and Melksham went off just before 7pm as most of the county settled down in front of the TV.

The fault was traced to the Norrington electrical sub-station at Melksham where engineers found that a small animal or bird had got into the equipment and caused a massive short circuit. They were unable to identify what kind of animal it was.

A spokesman for Southern Electric said: "Our engineers worked very quickly and got power back to 56,000 customers within three quarters of an hour. Everyone else was back on by 8.30pm.

"We apologise to everyone for this very widespread loss of power, but this is a very rare sort of incident.

"I can only think of one similar incident in the whole country in the last year."

Southern Electric said it is very conscious of the danger that electricity sub-stations pose for children during the summer holidays and it is increasing the number of visits it makes to schools in the county to talk to children about the dangers of approaching anything to do with electricity supply.