Parts of Wakefield were without power for more than 24 hours at the weekend.

Businesses were forced to close and people to take shelter where they could to try to keep warm on one of the coldest nights of the year.

The power went off around 1pm Saturday and was restored early Sunday evening.

But strangely, the Fox and Hounds pub on Barnsley Road was unaffected even though there was no power in many of the premises all around them.

Manager Mandy Wilkinson said: "I've no idea why we didn't have a power cut. A lot of our customers thought we must have had a back-up generator but we don't.

"We had customers coming in asking to charge their phones throughout the day and coming in for a coffee and a meal to keep warm."

John and Joanne Coxon who own the The Lakeside Cafe had to turn away hundreds of customers over the weekend and estimate their losses could run into thousands of pounds.

John said: "Saturday wasn't too bad but we lost the whole day's trading on Sunday. We open in the morning until about 2pm and we had two large parties booked in for afternoon tea."

He said the fact that the freezers had stopped working meant they had to throw all the food away when they came in on Monday morning which added to the loss.

Stanford and Jenniffer Holey, who have run the Beulay Cafe in Newmillerdam for 46 years had to be rescued by their son Richard. He said: " Dad is 89 and mum 79 and I had to pick them up and take them to my house as they had no heating or light."

Richard said they would normally serve 300 customers over the course of the weekend at the cafe. The closure hit them especially hard as they'd only reopened on Wednesday after being closed for three weeks for repairs to the floor.

Paul Hardwick, the manger of the Dam Inn said they had a power cut overnight Friday to Saturday and didn't realise until he went to the CCTV and it was off. He said: "We reset the CCTV and at 1.20pm we had people in drinking and dining and the power just went off again and was off until 6.40pm on Sunday night.

Richard said that they had lost around 50 bookings on Saturday and 200 on Sunday.

Northern Powergrid have been contacted for a comment and have yet to respond.