ELECTRICITY customers who lost power for four days or more are to receive a special storm payment from embattled distribution company 24seven.The company is to pay £100 compensation to an estimated 20,000 customers who lost power for that length of time.

By Paul Geater

ELECTRICITY customers who lost power for four days or more are to receive a special storm payment from embattled distribution company 24seven.

The company is to pay £100 compensation to an estimated 20,000 customers who lost power for that length of time.

The compensation will be available for customers who were still without power at 10.00pm on Thursday 31 October after the severe winds hit the country on Sunday 27 October.

Customers who believe they are eligible for this payment should write to, or e-mail the company and they could be entitled to £100.

At the height of the storm more than 300,000 of 24seven's more than three million customers were without electricity.

In an open letter to customers, 24seven's managing director, Alan Carey said: "On behalf of 24seven, I would like to sincerely apologise to those customers in Eastern England who were without power for some days after the recent storm.

"I want to take this opportunity to reassure all our customers that we are determined to learn from this experience.

"We will carry out a full review and welcome input from all interested parties, especially our customers.

"The conclusions of our review and our subsequent proposals will be made public.

"We may not see storms like this again for a decade, but we want to ensure that, when we do, our customers will get the best possible response from us, especially in the provision of information to them.

"We can't change the weather; but we can – and will – improve how we deal with its effects."

Vincent de Rivaz, Chief Executive of 24seven's parent company, London Electricity Group (LE Group) added: "Last week was a difficult one for many of our customers.

"Throughout, our priority was to restore supplies to customers as quickly as possible.

"Although we connected 90 per cent of customers affected within 24 hours of Sunday's storms, I recognise that some of our customers were without vital supplies for many days and many found it difficult to receive timely and accurate information from us.

"I too would like to apologise to them for that and I hope that our special payments will recognise the difficulties they experienced."