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| NEWS | BY KIM JANSSEN |
 London network head Patrick Clarke |
Up to 4,000 residents have been hit by 14 power cuts in the area since a sub-station in the basement of a Dartmouth Park Hill tower block blew up on November 29 last year. At a hastily-arranged crisis meeting at St Mary’s Church on Tuesday evening, nine representatives from Electricite de France (EDF), the French state-owned supplier for London, faced 15 angry residents. EDF claimed it had hand-delivered 550 invitations to homes which had suffered cuts. But several residents at the meeting said neither they nor their neighbours had received the letters. They described the offer of £50 payments as goodwill gestures to affected customers as “inadequate”. EDF faults manager Dave Folkard apologised for the inconvenience to residents, which has seen many go without heating for long spells in the coldest months of the winter. He said the delay in repairing the sub-station was caused by complaints from tenants worried about another explosion if the sub-station was replaced. EDF tried to find another location without success and is now installing a new sub-station at the original site. All but two of the power cuts since the explosion had been caused by overloading the system while the sub-station was out of order, he said. But residents had a string of complaints about unhelpful call centre staff at EDF and about waits of up to five hours for engineers to attend after power cuts. Dr Henry Potts, of Brookfield Park, said his mother had had to pay £200 for a new boiler after a series of power cuts broke it. He added: “EDF should have put more resources into the area once they knew the substation was broken and that the situation here was sensitive.” Resident Paul Barker, of Dartmouth Park Avenue, said: “When I called to report a power cut all along our road I was effectively asked to stay in for the next five hours until an engineer arrived. I didn’t, I went somewhere warm instead.” Mr Folkard conceded: “There was no need for them to say that. The information we gave out might not have been as accurate as it could have been.” The head of EDF’s London network, Patrick Clarke, described the capital’s infrastructure as one of the most reliable in the world but said the level of service Dartmouth Park customers had received was “not acceptable”. He added that the reason for the explosion was still being investigated. Several roads will have to be dug up in the next two months so cables, which may have been damaged since November, can be re-laid. |
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