Fears over powercuts in Esh Winning, Witton Gilbert, Durham, Brandon
Speaking in a House of Commons debate on Energy Security and Net Zero on Tuesday (February 10), City of Durham MP Mary Kelly Foy, noted that residents in Esh Winning, Witton Gilbert, Brandon, and Waterhouses had been in contact to highlight issues with their power.
During the debate, Ms Foy questioned what the Government was doing to ease these issues for residents in County Durham.
Later on in the parliamentary session, the City of Durham MP said that the weather wasn’t a factor in many of these power outages, given that they happened in summer, instead of storms.
She said: “Constituents, Esh Winning, Witton Gilbert, Brandon, Waterhouses, and businesses in Durham City regularly contact me about recurring power outages.
“They’re told that temporary repairs will be made, but this offers no reassurances to those who are elderly, live alone, and rely on their electricity supply for medication or powered medical equipment.
“Recent storms can’t be blamed because many of these outages were reported in spells of fine weather.
“Can the minister tell me what work the government is carrying out to improve the resilience of the electricity distribution network in Durham so that my constituents aren’t constantly worried about when the power will next go out?”
Ms Foy was directing her question towards Michael Shanks MP, Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero.
In response, Mr Shanks said: “I completely understand the frustrations of people who are without power and the disruption it has to people’s lives.
“My department has had several conversations on the particular issues in my honourable friend’s constituency (City of Durham), and I’m advised that across Waterhouses, Brandon and Esh Winning. Many of these were caused by trees making contact with overhead lines.
“Clearly, all of this is feeding into the work that’s been taken so that the resilience of the line avoids this in the future.
“But we’ve also been working on how we can upgrade the network where possible to make sure that it’s resilient.
“There’s obviously more that we can do, but across the country, the network does remain resilient, and we’ll look to work with communities where there are unfortunately power outages.”