Ormskirk was recovering today from not one but five power cuts which brought businesses to a halt in the town centre, blacked out traffic lights and affected daily life in almost 2,000 homes.







The town was hit by what Electricity NW called 'major power outages' from around 11am to late afternoon with the traffic lights at the junction of St Helen’s Road and Park Road only switched back on at around 8.30pm.







QLocal’s learnt of numerous headaches for local businesses with all the McDonald’s tills going down again, again, again, again and again and the town’s biggest taxi company – Ormskirk Taxis – stopped in its tracks after all the battery powered back up systems ran out of power, too. And the busy Spar garage on Southport Road was operating on a cash only basis after its card readers went AWOL.



Meanwhile, shoppers on the Hattersley Retail Park were disappointed to find each of its four shops shut including the new Food Warehouse which sent a emergency call to firm in Preston to deliver a generator...





Morrison’s and the M&S Food Hall were also operating on emergency generators with Morrison's reducing indoor lighting by half to conserve power.



And staff at the Cricketers were contemplating ringing round customers to tell them of potential booking cancellations – customers at lunchtime texted by candlelight from the bar after its power went down!



Those businesses which were affected were all busier than normal with half term custom although some escaped scott free with some parts of town spared any power losses.

The power cut is believed to have affected homes and business from Halsall to Skem.– at the time of writing there have been none so far today up until 3.45pm.