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Power company called to account after Northington blackouts

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Monday, 20 January, 2014
  • Local News
Representatives of the local community and power company SSE came together in Northington on January 20th after a series of power cuts ruined Christmas for hundreds of families.

The meeting was convened by Winchester MP Steve Brine after he was contacted by Parish Council Chairman, John Mitchell.

Mr Mitchell was joined by parish councillors Yvonne White and Fleur Boyce as well senior members of the team from SSE power distribution including the Head of Customer Services and Director of a Corporate Affairs, Duncan MacDonald.

The meeting heard how a 'perfect storm' of events had come together to cause the blackouts which ran four four days in some places from December 23. This included broken overhead lines, blown circuits and widespread flooding as fierce storms hit the area over the festive period.

As well as hearing the impact the outages had on many residents an action plan was agreed which will see the implementation of the 2014 tree maintenance programme to try and minimise the impact of future storms on falling trees bringing down power lines.

In addition the company will work with the parish council on a resilience plan which could see the village hall used as a hub in future and to organise an Open Day when residents will be able to meet SSE staff face to face. The distribution of analogue telephones will also be explored to allow better commutation with households in any future power failure.

Steve Brine said: "This meeting was an important line in the sand. Many of my constituents had their Christmas ruined by these blackouts and we need to be sure everything possible is being done to both mitigate future power failures and prevent them happening which is why the tree programme is so important.

"I've had much experience working with SSE after the problems we had in Kings Worthy so it was good to get them back round a table and work through what can be done. To their credit they've responded well and we now have some solid plans agreed to work on going forward."

Parish Chair John Mitchell added: "This was a constructive meeting with serious contributors. SSE can rely on Northington Parish Council and our residents to do all they can to help them to retain the momentum of this initiative and to ensure the implementation of SSE's proposals."

The power company also agreed at the meeting to work with the parish council on some form of Community Contribution as a gesture of goodwill following the blackouts.

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