Northern Powergrid: Residents thanked for 'patience' after firm takes two months to fix power cut

Residents in Sheffield have been thanked for their patience after a firm took two months to fix a power cut.

Northern Powergrid said a fault occurred on an underground cable at 5am on February 26, causing an outage for 1,455 customers in the Bents Green and Common Lane areas.

Electricity was restored to all but 12 customers an hour-and-a-half later, the firm said.

A diesel generator was installed in a field on Common Lane  running 24-hours-a-day. On March 21, Northern Powergrid said repair work was underway and the issue would be fixed ‘next week’. Green councillor Peter Gilbert visited the site this weekend amid concerns over air pollution.

He said: “I spoke with residents at Whiteley Wood Manor who confirmed the generator was removed over the weekend. Apparently the work has been on hold as the ground was unworkable due to record rainfall.”

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A spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said they used generators where there were “no other alternatives.”

They said: “While carrying out investigative repair work, our team found a secondary fault which required excavation work and 50 metres of new underground cable. This work is now complete and customers were connected back to our network on Friday, May 3.

“We’d like to thank customers for their patience while our teams worked safely to install new cable and restore their connection.

“As part of our current business plan we will invest £2.8bn by 2028 on improving our network and supporting the creation a greener energy system for our customers and are working towards carbon net neutral operations by 2040.

“We use generators when there are no other alternatives to provide power for our customers for a sustained period until a fault can be located and a full repair can be coordinated, carried out and tested.”