A POWER cut in St Albans city centre starved some Christmas shoppers of bank services for a whole day last week. The electricity supply to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and nearby Barclay s bank in St Peters Street failed just before 11pm on Sunday (30

A POWER cut in St Albans city centre starved some Christmas shoppers of bank services for a whole day last week.

The electricity supply to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and nearby Barclay's bank in St Peters Street failed just before 11pm on Sunday (30) leaving bank customers stranded the next day.

Derek French, a RBS customer and passer-by on Monday, said that he was not impressed with the way his bank had handled the situation. He said: "There was only a scrappy notice outside the branch which directed bewildered customers to Watford or Hemel Hempstead. But Barclay's Bank had an employee on the door telling their customers exactly what had happened."

A spokesperson from RBS said: "We physically can't operate without power which is why the St Peter's branch was forced to close. Because it was pitch black, the staff could not arrange any form of notification aside from the poster but we do apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers."

EDF Energy Networks engineers arrived on Monday morning but could not restore power until gone 2am the next day. A spokesperson from EDF Energy said: "We do understand how much inconvenience any interruption to power can cause and would like to apologise to the customers affected.