As you will know three large generators were delivered to the village on Sunday and are currently powering all our properties. There was a short outage as the power was cut from the grid and transferred to the generators which was unavoidable.
Every property in the village should have received a letter from Scottish and Southern saying they would be carrying out essential work over five days from 10th July and ending at 4.30 on Friday 14th July (note that when they disconnect on Friday the power will again go off temporarily).
The Parish Council was not made aware of this in advance and personally, I never received a letter. Having made further enquiries it would appear that many other people were also unaware of this work, although the company say that every house was supposed to have received advanced notice.
Scottish and Southern are now verifying with the contractor who carried out the door distribution of their letter to establish exactly which properties were notified and I have asked them to supply the list to me.
If you have been affected by this situation and did not receive prior notification via letter then my advice is to phone 105 or 08000 727282 to register a complaint. If they can’t prove that your property was ticked-off as delivered, you will be eligible for compensation of £30 as set by the industry regulator, OFGEM, which you will receive in due course.
The work is essential to improve the reliability of the power supply to the area and involves upgrading equipment and putting in new poles to carry additional power lines and result in us being less isolated.
In conclusion, it is good news if it helps to limit future power outages because previously we have been warned to expect an increasing number.
John Honsinger
Chairman, Stratton Audley Parish Council
See work in progress below.
