Local MP Steve Brine is to meet senior representatives from SSE Power on Thursday (9 February) to discuss recent power cuts which have caused havoc in some parts of Winchester.
Updated 16:00 6th February - Steve will chair the meeting which will also be attended by representatives from Kings Worthy Parish Council. He says; "I have called the meeting which has a two-fold agenda; firstly, we need some answers and explanations as to what happened this weekend. Secondly, I want to hear SSE's plans for addressing the security of supply in Kings Worthy and immediate surrounding areas. We need some answers and an end to this long-running saga which is getting out of hand."
Reports from the meeting will appear on this page on Thursday afternoon.
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Steve has been receiving reports throughout today (Sunday 5 February) from residents affected by the latest in a series of power cuts affecting the Kings Worthy area. See update here ...Residents in the Kings Worthy area of Winchester were affected by a series of power outages on Saturday 4 February, overnight and through Sunday 5 February.
Speaking at 19:15 on Sunday evening, Steve says; "I received the following update from SSE just now, text of email in brackets ...
[As we speak all customers bar one substation are now restored. The substation currently off supply is at Elling Close, which is actually in Harestock. This supplies approximately 200 customers and supply is due to be restored shortly.
The failures have caused two underground cable failures. These have staff allocated to them and we will be working on them through the night to locate the faulted section and carry out repairs.
As a secondary measure i have also requested generator sets to be identified and allocated ready for despatch should we have any further issues whilst these repairs are underway.]
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Speaking at 18:30 on Sunday evening, Steve says; "I started getting emails this morning and got straight onto my contact in the senior team at SSE asking for an urgent update and to convey the understandable anger there is locally at further power cuts.
"It seems SSE are dealing with multiple issues right now affecting a large number of residents across the Kings Worthy area and down into the Itchen Valley. I have been promised regular status updates this evening and in the morning and have obviously told them to ensure they stop at nothing (Sunday night or not) to safely re-connect customers without delay.
"I think they are facing some very challenging events which are stretching their engineers hugely but, as I said to SSE today, they are just very lucky we don't (yet) have the snow most other parts of the country seem to have this weekend.
"I have also told them the information they are providing customers is simply not good enough right now and they will I hope address that, within the bounds of what reliable information they have to give at this moment."
Steve added that there were much wider points to discuss with SSE once the immediate supply has been restored;
"Obviously re-connecting supply must be the priority but I have insisted senior SSE managers come to Winchester this week to explain the current situation and their future plans to address the security of supply. This will happen in the next few days and I hope the Parish Council in Kings Worthy will be able to attend so SSE can explain themselves fully to me and local village representatives. I have contacted them as well this evening."
If you are a resident affected by these power cuts, please feel free to email Steve with your stories - even if it just helps to get it off your chest - steve.brine.mp@parliament.uk