Bognor Regis power cut: 21 customers remain affected as welfare van set up

The company apologised for the incident and said a welfare van had been provided this morning to provide free hot drinks to those affected overnight.

A total of 316 customers were affected by the power cut initially, which was first reported at 4.57pm last night.

SEE MORE: Bognor power cut set to last for up to 21 hours

Among them was Ashley Rowe, of West Street, who said his power did not return until 3.45am this morning.

“I couldn’t cook or have any hot drinks or hot food,” he said. “I just had a few candles on, which I had, luckily.”

The 69-year-old said he had to throw all the food out of the freezer. “I didn’t want to chance it,” he said. “It started really defrosting.”

Ashley was kept awake for most of the night due to repair works taking place on an underground cable in West Street.

Police cordoned off part of the road while engineers worked at the site.

West Susses Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that one appliance was sent at 6.46pm following reports of smoke issuing from the pavement and remained at the scene until shortly before 11pm.

Ashley said he was unable to sleep due to the digging and drilling taking place. “It went on all night,” he said.

He said he had called the company asking for compensation, but was told this would only be provided for people whose supply was affected for 12 hours straight.

“I said, that’s not very good is it! We’re only an hour and a quarter off!” he said, adding it was the longest power cut he had ever experienced.

The spokesman for Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said the compensation frame work was set out by the regulator Ofgem.

Engineers investigating the power cut had found two faults on a section on LV underground cable, according to the spokesman.

“An investigation to the cause of the fault is ongoing,” the spokesman said.

“316 customers were affected by the fault initially.

“Engineers we able to restore customers in phases with the first phase of customers restored at 10.47pm.

“For those customers who we affected over night we provided a welfare van this morning to provide free hot drinks and welfare needs for customers affected.

“We have 21 customers who remain without power. We hope to have all customers restored by 2pm today.

“We would like to apologise to our customers in Bognor Regis who have been affected by this power cut.

“The power cut was caused by a fault on a underground cable in the area.

“We would like to assure everyone that our teams did everything they could to get the power back on as safely and as quickly as possible.”

Butlins resort was also affected by the power cut yesterday.

One customer, Ashley Williams, tweeted that his dinner had been ‘ruined’ by the outage.

A spokesman for the resort confirmed that the opening of some shows were moved back an hour or so, but that power was restored by about 8pm and all the venues were reopened.

The spokesman said it was an ‘inconvenience’ but that Butlins worked to minimise disruption as much as possible, adding that the resorts were quieter at this time of year.

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