Frustrations over Crooklands power cuts (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Frustrations over Crooklands power cuts

5:37pm Monday 26th November 2012 in News

FRUSTRATED residents in and around Crooklands have complained of yet another power cut in the area.

An overhead line fault at 8.18am today wiped out the electricity supply to 1,253 homes.

Engineers on site managed to restore power to 677 customers by 9.20am, another 422 at 9.30am and the remaining 154 by 2.26pm.

A spokesman for Electricity North West said: “As it was an overhead line fault, engineers needed to repair the line, which meant it would have taken longer.”

Mike Glover, who runs a media consultancy firm from his home in Milton, said: “It seems ridiculous that the local MP and others are calling for improved broadband in rural areas if we can’t even have electricity.

“We have at least two sever power cuts a year, which disrupt business as well as annoy householders.

“It is about time they put these cables underground to protect them from modest winds, startled birds, and all the other weak excuses they come up with.”

Gemma Shah, manager at Crooklands Hotel, said power cuts there are happening more often, averaging one every other month.

She said: “It affects everything for us - we had no computers, no phone lines, we couldn’t cook anything. We had to cancel meetings which had been booked in. It has obviously affected our guests and we have lost business.”

There was also a low voltage underground cable fault in the Crooklands area yesterday when one customer was affected. Generators were put in place and engineers will be back on site this evening to repair the original fault.