Work at Futura Park

CONTRACTORS working on the new Futura Park development on the edge of the town damaged a power cable during work earlier this week.

But they insist that the problem had nothing to do with the power cut which blacked out hundreds of properties in the Nacton Road area for 39 minutes.

It was the second time since work started on the site that homes had lost power.

A spokeswoman for UK Power Networks, which owns and maintains the electricity grid, said: “We always try to notify people about planned work which will affect their electricity supply. However in this case the two power interruptions which we have on record this year were not planned. They were caused by a third party digging through high voltage underground cables which supply power to the area.

“UK Power Network engineers attended on May 10 and October 17 to repair the damage and restore supplies. About 200 customers’ power supplies were interrupted in both incidents.”

Andrew Berry, from Nacton Road, was concerned that the network might not be able to cope with the new development.

He said: “Since the development work started on the Cranes site, along Nacton Road near to the site we have had to put up with power cuts.

“Is the work resulting in the power having to be cut off to have components installed in the new development, or is it that the substation in Ransomes Way cannot cope with the additional demand?”

A spokesman for developer Aquigen said there had been a power problem on Wednesday which required UK Power Networks to be called out, but it was confined to the site itself – any wider power cut was nothing to do with their work. However UK Power Networks said they were only called to one problem on Wednesday.