The second phase of the £584,000 project will involve engineers pulling the new cable across the lake by boat, following the installation of 560m of power cable along the lakeside in the remote village of Wasdale Head in Cumbria last month.

The original electricity cable was installed under Wastwater in 1977 when Wasdale Head was first connected to the electricity network by Electricity North West’s predecessor, Norweb.

Martin Deehan, operations director for Electricity North West, said: “The time is right to proactively replace sections of the power cable, to help ensure the local residents and businesses receive the essential power they need for years to come.

“This is an incredibly difficult job due to the extremely remote location and sensitive area. The lake itself is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest as is a large area of the scree slopes alongside.

“We postponed the work by a couple of days to ensure there was no disruption to the Wasdale Head Show on Saturday, which we were delighted to attend and it was a great community event.

“We have been working closely with the local community and they have showed us great support towards the work we are doing in the area. We will keep any disruption to a minimum and we thank local customers for their patience while we carry out this essential project.”

The project will be completed in November and the work to pull the new power cable across the lake will take a couple of days. A planned shutdown will take place to allow engineers to safely connect the new cables to the network and all customers will be given advance notice. During the works all of the local businesses will remain open as normal. Traffic maybe stopped briefly to allow engineers to safely unload equipment.

To view photographs from the project visit our Flickr page here.