Residents in County Durham have hit out at the response from Northern Powergrid over 'ongoing' issues that have seen their homes continuously hit by power faults.

Over 400 houses in Leadgate in Consett, County Durham had an unfortunate start to the new year when they were left without power for over eight hours on New Year’s Day. 

After faulty powerlines led to a power cut on New Year's Day, Northern Power Grid installed two generators to cover the area with one being branded a 'nuisance' as 28 homes were affected by another three power cuts in less than a week.

Lyndsay Whiteley from Leadgate was furious with the response from Northern Powergrid claiming to be left completely ‘in the dark’ about the issues surrounding the power cuts.

Local school Leadgate Primary, as well as Prospect Business Park, were also powered by a generator. 

She said “The power cuts have caused so much anxiety, I wasn’t sure what was happening, if the power would be off when I got home, when I was making tea, or working from home. The whole street was frantic charging phones and buying torches because we weren’t sure what was happening.

“This all started on New Year's Day, I had family visiting and it was a complete nightmare.”

This street in Leadgate is no stranger to power cuts, as in 2021, the residents had to move out of their homes and into hotel accommodation for seven days following power cuts caused by storm Arwen.

Northern Power Grid are said to have finally rectified the issue after fixing the faulty line and removing the generator, that had been powering the houses for fifteen days.

Read More:

However, Lyndsay and other residents aren’t convinced that this is the last time they will be dealing with this issue.

She added: “This has been such a bad way to start the new year, it has been one issue after the next and I do hope the issue is finally fixed.

“This street always seems to be impacted, any time we have a bit of bad weather there are issues. I can’t help feeling like this problem is bigger than a few faults.”

“This is all made so much worse by the fact I have lost so much trust in Northern Power Grid, the timescales for power returning were always changing, I wasn’t even told we were being powered by a generator.”

Northern Power Grid has apologised for the inconvenience caused and was not able to confirm the cause of the generator issues but offered £30 to each household affected. 

A spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said: “The power cut affecting Bluebell Close, Leadgate, was caused by an underground cable fault. Engineers attended site to investigate and identified cable repairs were required. To maintain customers’ supply, a generator was connected and customer communication was sent via letter and text message, to keep them informed.

“All customers were restored to the network on Monday 15 January and generators were removed.

“We’d like to thank customers for their patience whilst our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to repair the underground cable.”