Homes across Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield have been left without power this afternoon after thunderstorms across the borough.

Residents have reported losing power after seeing lightning in the sky, and while some properties have seen their supply restored, outages are still being experienced.

UK Power Networks are hoping to have power restored between 6pm and 7pm this evening, but hope they "may be able to get some customers on sooner".

"We're sorry for any disruption this may have caused you," reads an update on their website.

"As this was an unexpected power cut, we didn't know it was going to happen so we were unable to give you advanced notice.

"We estimate your power will be back on between 6pm and 7pm.

"We may be able to get some customers on sooner. The timeframe may change and be extended depending on our investigations and the work involved to resolve the issue."

In a further update, UK Power Networks believe an "overhead cable fault" may have caused the outages, and that power is being diverted to some properties while engineers work to fix the issue.

"We believe the issue is an overhead cable fault that initially interrupted power to several thousand properties," read the update. 

"However, we have managed to divert power back to some properties, so a number of properties are still affected.

"Specialist engineers from our control room will continue to divert power remotely, so your power may come back on at any point.

"Sometimes we can't restore everyone this way, so we're also sending staff to check our equipment."

More updates as we get them