PUBLICANS are counting the cost of a major power cut which blacked out watering holes and 900 mid-Test Valley homes on Tuesday evening.

A tree-damaged power line at Kimbridge caused the widespread disruption including delays to train services on the Salisbury to Southampton line and the closure of pubs at Michelmersh and Dunbridge -two of the six villages hit by the blackout.

A Southern Electric spokeswoman said tree-felling operations had been carried out at Kimbridge Farm but she was unable to give much detail - other than power lines had been brought down by a tree.

Kimbridge Farm Estate manager Peter Wilkins said: "No trees were being cut down at the time. It was a big wind-blown alder tree that pushed over small trees onto the wires."

He added that men working nearby had a lucky escape because they had just finished for the day when the trees crashed down.

Homes in Mottisfont, Michelmersh, Timsbury, Kimbridge, Braishfield and parts of Dunbridge were left without lights, hot water and heating - at about 4.30pm.

Power supplies were restored to the majority of customers some four hours later but 11 homes at Kimbridge remained without electricity until 4am, Wednesday.

Landlord of the Mill Arms at Dunbridge said Southern Electric had to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

Paul Broome said: "I reckon my electricity bill is about £1,200 a month. I want a better service than I am getting. The electricity supply is always going on and off at night. We seem to have more power cuts here than anywhere else. I lived at the top of a mountain in Spain for two years and there were never power cuts."

He added: "The power cut probably lost me about £1,000. I had to close the pub and the restaurant and lost out on skittles bookings. We have a music quiz on Tuesday nights and that went too. Nobody could ring the pub because we have an electric phone system so we probably lost future bookings as well.

I get my power through British Gas and they advised me to speak to Southern Electric about it and they told me to go back to British Gas. I didn't know how long the power was going to be off so I kept my staff on until 8pm and then sent them home with pay."

Paul said the blackout even disrupted his plans for the next day. "I had a party of shooters booked in for dinner and I was unable to prepare anything beforehand because of the power loss," said the landlord, adding that every time the electricity goes off his computerised accounts are affected.

Customers at the Bear and Ragged Staff pub at nearby Michelmersh had to wait until late evening to buy a drink.

Landlord Malcolm Clark said he lost trade because of the power failure. "I would like compensation for this. I probably lost about £1,000 in takings. We opened in the evening at about 9.45pm and only served about eight customers," said Malcolm.

And the manager of Kimbridge Farm Shop and Restaurant, Steve Read, said on Wednesday morning: "Fortunately we only had about half an hour to go. We are now running on a generator until the power is restored."

Timsbury publican, Martin Rickman, of the Malthouse Inn, is demanding to know what happened to his power supply.

Martin said: "We stayed open and were lit by candle-power. We had to turn away nearly 30 people. We had a party of 14 from Hedge End booked in for a late Christmas get together and I had to cancel them. We lost up to £1,000 in business and I want to know what happened.

"A recorded Southern Electric message said an external contractor had damaged overhead wires and I am now looking to see if I can get compensation. This was the second time we lost power with the last few months."

Trains services between Romsey and Salisbury suffered delays because points were affected by the loss of power at Dunbridge. Automatic barriers at the village railway station were controlled by rail staff during the emergency. One Salisbury-bound train was held up at Romsey station for about 30-minutes due to the problems.

Around 1,400 homes were blacked out in November in two unrelated power cuts affecting the same area. One was attributed to an underground cable problem at Mottisfont resulting in loss of power to some homes for 16 hours and the other on a faulty high-voltage overhead cable in the Romsey area.