About 3,000 homes are without power in parts of Stockport after workers cut through cables for three sub stations.

United Utilities said engineers would work throughout the night to restore supplies to the areas of Marple, Disley and Hawk Green affected by the outage.

But a spokeswoman said that some properties may be without electricity until Friday evening.

The company was bringing generators into the area on Thursday evening to reconnect as many people as possible.

Difficult work

"If people haven't come back on by 2300 BST it may be tea time on Friday, the worst case scenario, before we get them back on," a spokeswoman said.

She said water contractors had accidentally dug through two cables leading into three substations in the area.

"It has made it more difficult than normal for engineers to reroute the electricity," she added.

"Our engineers will be working right through the night so we can get people back on as quickly a possible."