Residents of a Wensleydale village hit by a spate of power cuts have called for compensation.
West Witton and Swinithwaite Parish Council has written to Northern Powergrid after the villages suffered several cuts in November.
Council chairman Dave Brown said: “In recent weeks large numbers of properties in West Witton have been subject to a large number of power cuts, with several outages during November 15 and 20 alone.
“Whilst one of these outages was planned, the others have been unplanned and have caused considerable difficulty to the community, especially the over 11-hour outage of Thursday, November 17.”
The parish council said properties were supplied by a large generator while a fault was fixed.
However, he added: “This generator was allowed to run out of fuel on Saturday, November 19 causing a further two-hour outage.
“This is a largely older community, with many retired and increasingly elderly residents. Many residents have only electric power for light, heating, and cooking. Additionally, there are many here working from home or running hospitality businesses.
“The level of inconvenience caused by these outages is considerable and unacceptable. In times when the cost of living is going up, many have had to throw away food due to the lack of fridge/freezer power, and the lack of heat as the days get colder has caused worry and distress. Some may have lost income due to being unable to work without power.”
A planned outage on Tuesday, November 15 was scheduled to happen between 9am and 1pm, but instead happened between 12.30pm and 5pm.
The chairman added: “Some properties had been informed of the planned outage, but the majority had not, and the outage came as a shock. Those that had been prepared had made plans to deal with having no power for the indicated period of 9am to 1pm and so were further inconvenienced by the unexplained delay into the afternoon.
“We have had no communication to advise on the nature of the current fault or the timeline for the regular supply to be rectified.”
Mr Brown concluded by asking for some suggestions regarding compensation for those that have been heavily inconvenienced.
In response, a Northern Powergrid spokesperson apologised for the inconvenience.
They said generators were used to maintain power to the community after the initial network fault occurred.
These then developed a fault which had to be rectified by the contractor.
The spokesperson said the main fault was resolved on November 24 and the community’s supply should now run as normal.
Comments are closed.
I would like to congratulate and back Dave Brown of West Witton Parish Council, for asking for compensation from Northern Powergrid after all those power cuts in our Village.
As a Pensioner myself it was concerning how quickly your property gets cold and with only electricity or oil to use you are left stranded. Northern Powergrid did apologise to me and offer hot water, but I needed my heat restored.