We understand the frustration of residents in the Old Headington area who have experienced a series of power cuts over recent months. We are liaising with SSE and they are keeping us up to date with developments.

There was a further power cut of around 2 hours last night. The software that they had put in at the substation to monitor this did work – it detected fuses blowing and replaced them one by one but couldn’t completely prevent the power from going off.

This matter has been escalated within SSE, it has been brought to the attention of the Head of Network Sustainability and head of customer services for the area.

The problem is that the faults happen intermittently and are underground. In these sorts of cases, if water seeps into a nick in the plastic casing around the cables in one place, the fault may manifest itself some distance away at a joint. The software is trying to isolate the fault to a stretch of road between two specific location points – once the stretch of road is identified, SSE will dig it up.

Once the likely site of the fault is determined, the process would be that SSE schedules the digging up of the road and gives 7 days notice to residents. In cases of extreme urgency (permanent rather than intermittent fault), SSE could invoke emergency procedures and give only 48 hours notice, but this is unlikely in this case.

If you wish to talk  to SSE directly, the number to ring is 0800 980 1395 and the reference is 31598

One extra piece of information we learned: SSE does offer ‘suitcase’ packs to households to ensure power can be maintained while works are carried out and the main power is turned off, this may be useful for anyone needing power supply for medical equipment etc.

We are keeping the Friends of Old Headington informed