SSE aids Feudal-minded landlord to shut power off all day for whole village!

[LA2222]

Is it unreasonable to expect that generated power should be supplied to the village at the landowners/SSE's arrangement and expense?

We are incensed that SSE is allowing a wealthy local landowner to show such outrageous inconsideration to all the other residents of our village.

Not only did a contractor working on his land cause a 5½ hour outage on Sunday 29th June, now all the people who work from home are effectively shut down on Tuesday 15th July for the day so privately commissioned work can be carried out on his land.

Our numerous elderly and infirm residents cannot even make a cup of tea all day and most communications are shut down without electricity, isolating them in their own homes. We have virtually no mobile coverage.

Lets hope it is a warm, bright day too, because our homes will be without light or heat.

The disgruntled residents of Wedhampton, Wiltshire.

Ooh my great grandad was born in Wedhampton.
That isn't any help though!

Can you give us any background/context to this?

If someone accidentally cut through cables and caused a power cut, YABU. It happens a lot of isn't malicious. And I think every the elderly and infirm go a few hours without a cup of tea without it being a breach of human rights

I'm guessing the contractor broke something? Annoying, but it happens, whether on private land or digging up the roads in towns and cities.

And they cut us off from time to time to do work - nothing to do with landowners in general, but if big changes to the supply are needed, then soemtimes that's just the way it goes.

Are you sure it's not also for practical reasons? We live in the country and last Christmas many people round here were cut off because trees fell on the line, during a storm. We were quite lucky as we were only without power on Christmas Eve, for about 14 hours, but some of our friends didn't have power on Christmas Day itself. We would be delighted if the cables were put underground here.

I think that everyone in Wedhampton will probably survive a few hours without power in July. No-one should need their heating on and it is possible to prepare a thermos of hot tea and a cold meal, before the electricity is cut off. If anyone is worried, maybe they could go out for the day to visit family or friends?

It will be a nuisance for those people who are trying to run businesses over the internet, but at least you have plenty of warning and can plan accordingly. Better than our situation last year (and many other times when we have high winds or heavy snow)

Really your argument is with SSE. Not even wealthy landowners can make utility companies shut off power. I'm guessing cables have been cut by accident or that they are laying some new cables/adding connections which necessitates stopping the supply. It's inconvenient but it happens and it's outwith anyone's control.

My parents village had no power for 2 days after a bloke electrocuted himself trying to jack a campsite into the main lines.

Didn't blame the landowner though! These things happen, you have prior warning, think you need to get a grip really sorry.

We were cut off for 7 hours about a fortnight ago whilst the UK power network people did the mandatory clearing of people's trees away from the power lines in the village . They do it themselves because of the obvious danger of proximity to high voltage cables . They also shut us down to replace the substation after it burned down due to someone's bonfire taking hold and burning down their garden , fence , and spreading to the substation . That was 24 hours without power for the fire , and another 5 to reconnect the substation . We live in the middle of nowhere with a crap mobile signal too .

And I can't believe that the entire village , however rural , is entirely dependent on electric . Even we have LPG , albeit no mains gas . We got by with a big saucepan of water on the hob, and some matches . As did most of our neighbours , the average age of which is 76 .

It's one day, YABU.

And it's got nothing to do with 'feudalism' SSE decide themselves whether they need to have a full shutdown for works to be carried out (no-matter who's land it's on) and do not generally supply generated power, which is hugely expensive, unless there is a scheduled shutdown expected to exceed 12 hours.

In the summer, during daylight hours, everyone can manage just fine for one day with no power!

Our local power co. have set up power outages several times that I can remember over the past 15 years. I don't mind as long as they let us know in advance. In exchange they are very very good at fixing things when storms disrupt power - like the time they worked outside in a fierce hail/thuinderstorm for four hours one winter night.
We get our water cut off every so often too when the water co. need to work on the pipes.
I suppose what I am saying is it's not uncommon for this to happen, especially if you live in a rural area. Most times they overestimate how long it will take so you may find the power is back on quicker than you expect.

I remember as a teenager most of South Leicestershire lost power. It went Saturday night in a very late snow storm (April time) and we were without power till the Monday. Some places took till Thursday to get their power back.

Nobody died/suffered too much and that was an area without mains gas so there weren't many Sunday roasts cooked that week!

Few years ago a gas pipe that was being worked on exploded resulting in a fire directly below the power lines. Took out all the gas and electric for the whole area. They worked round the clock to get everything sorted and power back as soon as was possible including going round every single property to check gas appliances when the gas was turned back on. Mine was done on Christmas eve by which time the temperature in the house had fallen to 5º. Middle of summer for 1 day I think you will all cope.

Chin up - I see you've got themobile library visiting that day, which will no doubt cheer up the elderly and infirm.

Obviously it's different if it's a planned interruption to services to the massive emergency work some people have experienced, but what exactly is being done? From your post there seems more than a touch of class rage about it being this landowner rather than, say, just a new house being connected or something.

Really your argument is with SSE. Not even wealthy landowners can make utility companies shut off power.

This is untrue.

My line of work.

If the village was at the end of a radial feeder and the landowner requests an upgrade to his connection (bigger cables or assets) - (or new cables or assets to replace ones close to failure) then they would have to notify them that they are out of power.

The reason this does not happen in city centres is that Mesh network allow power to be supplied from a number of points. Country radial networks have no redundancy built in.

In saying all that, they could have powered the village through a portable diesel generation scheme for the time required

Crikey. Don't move round here then. Our landlord really does own the entire village and does have stuff done that can be an inconvenience to everyone else - like road closed so he (and only he) could have Cable telly dug in across his land to his house - which is why we can't have it.

But we have been without water for a couple of weeks, well, we had water, just in the roads, ditches and fields rather than the pipes. We were also without electricity for a few of those same days, who knew that meant you could boil bottled water as the fuel oil required an electric pump? - we had a gas BBQ, so we managed with that and candles. None of which was his fault, he went without too.

Shit happens, and rurally shit happens more often....

glasgowsteven it was my line of work too and you obviously misunderstood what I said.

The landowner isn't treated any differently from anyone else making a request to the network for a new connection or cable. The decision to close the network is made by the utility company based on loads and existing cables.

The decision to apply for an upgrade or new connection is the landowner's. The decision on whether or not the rest of the network has to be closed for the duration of the works is the utility company's. And such a decision is just as likely to be made if a tenant requests a new connection. It's not related to status which is what the OP seemed to imply.

YABU. Omelettes don't get made without a few eggs being cracked. You have plenty of notice, it's summer, and it's one day.

couch

Agree totally.

The network was getting shut no matter who wanted a new connection etc

Really your argument is with SSE. Not even wealthy landowners can make utility companies shut off power.

This is untrue.

I misread what you said

wealthy landowners can make them shut off power, but not because they are wealthy, but because they request a new connection.......

I'm sure the elderly have got FLASKS??

not because they are wealthy, but because they request a new connection. or a cable redirected or etc, etc.
Yes, that's what I meant

complete italics fail I give up!