Power cuts hit 5 towns in region

HUNDREDS WITHOUT ELECTRICITY FOR 4 HRS

ASPATE of power cuts across North Wales and recent bad weather are probably “coincidental”, energy bosses say.

Last Thursday homes and businesses in five towns were hit with outages as Scottish Power engineers worked to restore power.

Wrexham was worst hit, with up to a few hundred homes off, after areas of the town were affected in the morning at about 10.30am. Cuts in parts of Caernarfon, Mold, Denbigh and St Asaph soon followed, with power restored to all properties by 2.30pm. The cause was given as “overhead network faults”.

It follows power outages across the region in recent

weeks. Engineers were sent to the scene of a power cut in Abergele and Pensarn recently, with hundreds left in the dark following an overhead network fault.

Around 600 properties had no electricity for nearly an hour, with residents reporting an “explosion” before the power went out.

Another outage in Flintshire saw homes without electricity supply after residents reported seeing smoke and hearing a loud bang in the Flint and Oakenholt area of Connah’s Quay on July 23.

The day before, properties in Wrexham experienced another power cut, with shops on Regent Street and on the Island Green shopping park forced to close for around an hour due to the lack of electricity – caused by a fault. North Wales has been hit by thunderstorms and rain in recent weeks. But Scottish Power chiefs say the power cuts and weather are not connected.

A spokesman for the power company said: “The power cuts aren’t weather-related at all... It looks as though it is just a coincidence that we’ve had a series of faults.”