Residents in a Palmers Green road were left in the dark for nine days after their street lights went out of action.

Householders in Russell Road could have been forgiven for believing that the nights were drawing in again when 25 lamps that illuminate the road and pavement cut out last Sunday.

The absence of street lighting caused particular concern to residents due to the fact that there is a lake at the foot of nearby Granville Road.

Peter Cremona, 52, lives in the street with his young family.

He reported the problem to Enfield council as soon as the fault became apparent and was critical of the length of time it took to be rectified.

Power was eventually restored yesterday afternoon by engineers contracted by the council.

He said: "It took less than an hour to repair something which has been going on for nine days. Why are we paying our council tax?

"Some of the residents are very scared. The area suffers from enough crime with the lights on, without them being out as well."

A council spokeswoman said the authority had promptly acted on Mr Cremona's information by contacting energy supplier, EDF the next day.

She blamed the incident on a fault in a piece of the firm's equipment and attributed the prolonged length of the black out to an administration error on the part of the energy giant.

She said: "Enfield lighting services notified EDF of the serious failure, and it was logged by the firm. Unfortunately the job was closed in error, and only came to their attention after an enquiry by us into the status of the fault."

EDF confirmed that the power supply had been interrupted by a faulty piece of equipment.

A spokesman said: "EDF Energy Networks apologises for any inconvenience this has caused."