John Harvey

RESIDENTS with homes in a busy street are to be offered a payment of £50 after an administrative error left them without power for 22 hours.

UK Power Networks were told that power had been lost to homes in part of Grimwade Street shortly before noon on Sunday.

However it was not until ten hours later that engineers turned up to start repairing the fault – and it was not until 10am yesterday that the last homes were reconnected.

John Harvey was one of those affected. He said: “We called the electricity board in but nothing happened until late at night – we’ve lost the contents of two freezers and had a pretty miserable time with no power.”

A spokeswoman for UK Power Networks said: “UK Power Networks would like to sincerely apologise and offer a goodwill payment of £50 each to three residents, after their first calls to us were logged incorrectly.

“They first reported a power cut at 11.52am on Sunday, and our engineer arrived on site to investigate at 10.05pm.

“Most customers had their power restored at 12.33am on Monday. In order to restore power to the final property we required access, and this was gained on Monday, with power restored at 10.18am.” She said the company would be contacting Mr and Mrs Harvey about further compensation for the loss of their frozen food.