Steph Trubshaw, Incident Manager, said: “We’re working flat out, and have been since Friday, to restore power to every last property. We know how incredibly hard this has been for people, particularly in this cold weather. We are working as fast as we can and won’t stop until everyone is back on. Our engineering and lines teams have done some incredibly difficult work to restore supplies and people across the business are supporting that effort to get power back for everyone. We have also cancelled all planned work on the network for the next week.”
Properties without power are mainly located in the south Lakes with engineers deployed across the region to tackle all remaining damage.
Electricity North West is aiming to restore all properties by Friday (3 December) and has quashed rumours of lengthier power cuts. Steph Trubshaw said: “There are rumours going round that people will be off for weeks. To be clear, we are confident that no customers in the North West will be off past the weekend as a result of this incident.”
As well as funding food, travel and hotel expenses for those who have been without power the longest, the network operator also reaffirmed its commitment to paying customers who’ve been without power.
Payments to customers following storms are set nationally by energy regulator Ofgem, depending on the severity of the incident. Storm Arwen will be classed as a ‘category 2’ storm in the North West, meaning customers are eligible for payments of £70 if they have been without power for 48 hours, plus a further £70 for each additional 12-hour period that they are off supply, up to a maximum of £700. The 48 hours starts when engineers can access equipment.
Steph Trubshaw added: “Our focus at the moment is still on restoring power to the final properties but we will of course pay everything that is set out by Ofgem. This is likely to take a few weeks and we will provide more information on our website over the next few days. We have also cancelled all planned work on the network for the next week so we can focus resources on final repairs.”
See food van locations and other key information, including how eligible customers can claim payments at www.enwl.co.uk/StormArwen.
