News

The issue of power cuts and low voltages was discussed by Shepway’s Community Overview Committee in July and now committee chairman, Cllr David Godfrey, is to meet Colin Barden, EDF Energy Networks’ South East Head of Network Operations, to, agree the best ways to inform residents about the reasons for the outages at their homes.

Mr Barden told the committee that very cold weather conditions in January and February had caused an unprecedented level of faults in the area. These faults and the additional demand for power in the cold weather caused a reduction in available power. Once EDF Energy Networks had identified the problem a generator was installed to restore supplies to normal.

“One of the underlying problems is that EDF Energy Networks was not prepared for the rapid growth of Hawkinge. We were told that it had taken time for EDF Energy Networks to work on the infrastructure needed to supply the whole area,” said Cllr Godfrey.

“The committee was reassured that future development would be better planned.”

Cllr Godfrey now plans to meet Mr Barden to seek further reassurances that supplies will be not be disrupted this winter and agree on the best way to inform residents about reasons for the power cuts earlier in the year.

A number of Hawkinge residents claimed a £50 compensation payment from the company after the power cuts, but many villagers were unaware they could make a claim. (click here)