Anger at ongoing power cuts in village (From Bucks Free Press)

Anger at ongoing power cuts in West Wycombe

12:04pm Monday 28th January 2013 in News By Rebecca Cain

ELECTRICITY has gone off for the third time within the past two weeks in West Wycombe.

The electric is currently out in the village but engineers hope it will be back working at 5pm.

Jill Povey, who runs The Sweet Shop, said it is like they have gone back to the dark ages as the electricity goes off for more than 15 hours at a time.

She said residents are also struggling to keep warm as the whole village is run on electric.

Ms Povey said it is also affecting her business as the electric company have had to dig up some of the High Street and there is less room to park.

Added to this The National Trust are carrying out refurbishment work in the village, which includes scaffolding.

She said: "My main concern is with no electric there is no heating for anyone. "I have got a young child so it is pretty serious for me."

She said the electricity went off twice in the last eleven days for 15 hours and her trade has been affected.

She added she is having to use candles in the shop.

Allison Finn, landlady at The Plough in the High Street, said: "There is no main gas in the village.

"Unless residents have open fires we are all on storage heating and some people have electric cookers."

She added: "It has been quite traumatic for a lot of the residents."

Spokesman for Southern Electric, Melissa Matheson, said: "There is an ongoing underground low voltage cable fault which is affecting the High Street in West Wycombe.

"There are currently operators on the site.

"It is particularly difficult due to the location and they have had to dig up the road to get access to the cable.

"We are looking at bringing in a generator.

"We aim to have all the supplies affected back by 5pm today.

"We would like to apologise for the inconvenience and thank residents for their patience."