A 40-HOUR power-cut was the last straw for residents in Wooburn Common who have complained about the service of their electricity provider.

Southern Electric Power Distribution were not able to help put the power back on or answer concerned villagers phone calls during the storm, one family say.

Emma Read, who lives in Wooburn Common, said: "I must have spent an hour on the phone. You can’t call a landline because of the electricity being out, it really felt like there was no one there to help."

She added: "We lose power a couple of times a year. The problem up here is that there is simply no investment in infrastructure. If you do not live in a town you will have overhead wires hanging above you which entwine with trees."

The power was down in her house for just over 40-hours with power going on Friday evening and not coming back until 5pm on Sunday.

Mrs Read said: "They had this problem at Christmas; they know these problems are going to happen they should have more people ready - more people to fix the problem and more people to take the calls from home owners.

"The only person I spoke to from the company was on Twitter- they asked somebody to call me but I never got a call. They are just not equipped for when we get national emergencies like that."

The main concern residents have expressed is having the high voltage cables going over their houses which often cause the loss in power.

A spokesman for Southern Electric Power Distribution, said: "In the Wooburn Common area the gale force winds brought down trees onto our overhead network and this resulted in power being off from late Friday night through to Sunday night.

"We'd like to apologise for the inconvenience this interruption caused and thank our customers for their patience as our engineers worked to restore their supplies."

The spokesman added: "We are committed to providing the best level of service at all times and we monitor the weather 5 days in advance to ensure we have enough staff in place to keep the lights on for our customers.

"Ahead of the severe weather which hit the south of England last weekend, we brought in extra linesmen, tree cutters, engineers and staff at our Emergency Service Centre and over the weekend we had around 1,000 staff across our network doing everything possible to restore supplies in very challenging conditions and keep our customers up to date with our engineers' progress."