A WESTCLIFF family claimed they had their Christmas "ruined" after being left without power for the big day.

The Keanes, from Westcliff, were looking forward to a "perfect" day but ended up eating picky bits and opening presents in the dark. 

Dad Matthew Keanes, 45, was cooking the Christmas roast dinner when the lights went out at around 12.20pm in Cleveland Drive. 

He contacted UK Power Networks but claims it was seven hours until the problem, a cable fault, was fixed.

Matthew says he, wife Gayle, 35, their daughter Ursula, six, and his mum Sonia, 72, ended up in "something out of a Christmas Carol".

Matthew, a teacher, says he is particularly gutted as this year was the first Christmas in years Gayle, who is an intensive care nurse, was at home.

But the family ended up playing Trivial Pursuit in the dark and says it was too late to enjoy the day when power returned after 7pm.

Matthew said: "I wanted to impress and make everything perfect, but it was ruined."

Gayle had returned back from working a nightshift in the early hours of the morning and then had her dream of a perfect Christmas with the family cruelly dashed.

In total the power was out for seven hours, coming on just after 7pm, by which time the family “didn’t really want a Christmas dinner anymore.”

They couldn’t even boil the kettle for a cup of tea and, once the power had gone, the family decided they better open their presents immediately.

Matthew says the power issues have been impacting them since October 31, when they had their first outage.

They also had a three-hour power cut on December 19.

Matthew said: “They send someone out, do a fix, and then the power comes back but then later down the line it goes again.

“We were all concerned that it hadn’t been fixed permanently.”

Matthew added how many people in the area have been impacted by the ongoing issue recently and claims a neighbour had no electricity for ten hours.

“She had half cooked turkey and instead went to someone else's house,” he said.

UK Power Networks said: "We are sorry for the inconvenience caused during the festive period.

"Our staff are working 24/7 to keep the power flowing and deal with any incidents that occur.

"Our engineers were called to Cleveland Drive, Westcliff at about 12pm on Christmas Day after a cable fault was found.

"Power supplies to 32 customers were interrupted and were restored to 16 of those by about 5pm.

"The remaining 16 customers had supplies returned to normal by 10.05pm."