Anne-Marie Trevelyan, MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, is holding daily meetings with Northern Powergrid to seek updates on the efforts to restore power to the 21,000 households across the region still without power following Storm Arwen.
Whilst thanking the emergency workers who have been toiling night and day to restore power, the MP expressed concern that many have been unable to even report their outages, as the phone lines are constantly overwhelmed.
Speaking last night, Ms Trevelyan said: “I know from my own experiences over the weekend how hard it has been to contact Northern Powergrid – I needed to report the live pylon down in my own garden – and their contact centre has been overwhelmed with the volume of calls. They confirmed to me yesterday they are drafting in support from other power companies, both for engineering teams to resolve the problems, and for the contact centre so people can get through on the phone lines.
“Engineers are being drafted in from across the country to support the efforts. Northern Powergrid confirmed to me they are ensuring those who are vulnerable are prioritised. If residents are concerned about themselves or others – for example they have electrically powered medical equipment – please do contact me so I can feed that information in to Northern Powergrid.”
The MP spent the weekend and this week in constant contact with the Council and Northumbrian Water, who have reported supplies to Berwick are slowly being restored now they have had power returned to their treatment and pumping stations.
She added “I have asked Ministers what Government support can be brought in to assist the engineering efforts, and support the nearly 2,000 people Northern Powergrid have working on this 24/7.”