Power restored to Auckland suburbs

LATEST: The power is back on in Auckland suburbs, but shop keepers' confidence in Vector is at an all time low.

The Auckland suburbs of Newmarket and Parnell today suffered the second major outage in a fortnight when more than 1000 homes and shops had power cut for almost two hours from 12.40pm.

The outage once again hit shopkeepers and customers during the busy lunch hour trading period and Newmarket Business Association head Cameron Brewer is fed up.

"Again the rug was pulled out from beneath many businesses. It was terrible for restaurants and cafes given it happened at lunch time," Brewer says.

"One of the big problems is no one carries any cash these days so business transactions come to a complete halt.

"It does nothing for business morale and confidence. It's happening too frequently in an economic environment that is challenging enough," says Brewer.

"Losing electricity at the peak of the day is the last thing business needs. Life is tough enough as it is," says Cameron Brewer.

Vector spokeswoman Philippa White said the cause of the power cut was still unkown, as most of the cables in the area were underground.

Vector managed to restore power more quickly during this outage by drawing electricity from another area, she said.

The outage was much more localised than the one which afflicted parts of Auckland from Mt Wellington to Newmarket on February 3.

But Brewer is far from impressed and is warning retailers to be prepared in case it happens again.

"We're telling retailers to keep an old zip zap machine under their counters because sadly it's probably going to happen again."

- © Fairfax NZ News