A SAFETY alert led to a power cut hitting around 300 properties in Sale town centre on Friday.

Homes and businesses in the Broad Road area had their power cut off for nine hours while checks were carried out.

The alert was sparked off with a report to energy giant United Utilities of smoke coming from beneath the pavement in Broad Road.

There were fears this was a fault on an underground power cable, and so the electricity supply was turned off to enable engineers to dig down to the power cables.

When they inspected the cable they could not find a fault. They discovered the problem was with another cable that belongs to Metrolink.

Once this was confirmed, the electricity supply was turned back on at around 7.30pm.

A spokesman for United Utilities said: "We're sorry for any inconvenience caused by the interruptions to the power supply in Sale last Friday, but hope people understand that when it comes to the safety of the public and our staff we can't take any risks."

A Metrolink spokeswoman said a fault was found on a cable under Northenden Road, which powers the overhead line. The fault was repaired overnight, while trams were not running.