Fire crews from Swindon Fire Station and Westlea tackled a fire involving a telephone exchange box yesterday morning. A fire service spokesman said the crews were called to deal with the electrical fire underneath the box in Tovey Road at 11.52am, before handing the incident over to the electricity board.

One Tovey Road resident, a 52-year-old man who wished to remain nameless, confirmed he was having electrical problems, but remained upbeat, due mainly to the scorching weather.

"We've been without power for most of the day. It's a bit annoying, but we've been sitting in the garden all afternoon, so we haven't really noticed.

"I suppose you don't mind too much when the weather's like this."

A spokesman from Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), whose workmen were dispatched to fix the exchange box, said there were 142 properties affected by the outage. Shortly before 5pm he said that generators had been dispatched to the scene to provide power to the homes while they fixed the damage, but didn’t anticipate being able to reconnect the homes to the grid until around 11pm.

He apologised for any inconvenience caused to householders and thanked them for their patience.