FURIOUS residents have hit out at electricity bosses after continuing to be blighted with power cuts.

Angry householders from Marlow Bottom asked MP Paul Goodman to step in after their efforts failed to get the problem fixed – and some now want compensation.

There have been three weeks of sporadic power cuts in Badgers Way, Goodwood Rise and Marlow Bottom Road, often occurring around 6pm to 7.30pm.

Mr Goodman will now write to Southern Electric to demand answers.

Mr Goodman said it appeared no one at the company had taken charge.

He said: “Clearly something went wrong at management level. It's important to find out what.

“It's clearly a very serious problem and they are obliged to do something about it as soon as possible.

“People will believe it's unacceptable and I see their point of view.”

Pauline Kay, 75, retired, of Goodwood Rise, said: “I feel it's absolutely disgusting, they have botched it up. It's pretty appalling in this day and age”

The former BBC production assistant, who worked with stars like Peter Sellars, said: “We are definitely angry, they said we couldn't get compensation because you have to be off for 18 hours but if you add all of ours up, it's just about that.”

The longest power cut was about six hours.

Free Press community correspondent Mike Williams slammed the company in an e-mail, saying it was “a shameful scandal”.

Southern Electric spokesman Morven Smith insisted the company had been doing all it could with teams of engineers out on site and said looking for the fault underground made it more difficult to locate.

“If people thought we weren't doing anything that wasn't the case,” she said.

“It may have seemed that way to Mr Williams but unfortunately these things can take time.”

She said the company apologises to everyone who was affected by the fault.

She said following a “reconfiguring” of the network “we are quite confident that will solve the problem and that should be the end of it.”

Compensation is a matter for regulator OFGEN to decide on but any dissatisfied customers should outline their concerns to Southern Electric, she said.

Marlow Bottom Residents Association chairman Peter Borrows praised Mr Goodman's intervention.

He said: “ He could be forgiven for being disinterested but has taken his constituency very seriously.

“That has characterised the way he's been all the way along. It's a great shame he's going.”

Anyone experiencing power cuts in the area should call 24 hour emergency line 08000 72 72 82.