Three Cottages Resturant, Bacton Road, North Walsham.

A faulty electricity cable affecting power to five residents has caused a major route through North Walsham to close for more than three days.

David Audley, owner of The Three Cottages, North Walsham.

UK Power Networks’ contractors have been fixing the fault since Monday and do not expect to reopen an estimated 150-yard section of Bacton Road until tomorrow, Thursday July 5.

The closure affects a key stretch of the road directly outside Sainsbury’s petrol station, from the Three Cottages fish restaurant and takeaway, to the junction with Kimberley Road.

David Audley, who owns the Three Cottages, said it had badly affected their passing trade.

“We’ve had the quietest Tuesday this year - you don’t expect July to be like January,” said Mr Audley this morning.

“Our regulars find a way to get to us but the holidaymakers follow the diversion signs and are taken away.”

A UK Power Networks spokesman apologised for the disruption. She said workmen were refilling a hole in Bacton Road following the cable repair which had cut power to residents for about four hours on June 21.

Contractors were on site today and were due to replace the final kerbstones tomorrow, when they aimed to reopen the road.

The affected stretch is a few yards from another section of Bacton Road and Vicarage Street which has been dug up three times over the past few weeks as part of work by different utility services to install new North Norfolk District Council public toilets in the town’s Vicarage Street car park which had originally been due to open at the end of March.