Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks go door to door in Frilsham after significant power cut affects village

A rural West Berkshire village was badly affected by a power cut last weekend, leaving many residents without power for nearly four days.

After a tree brought down a power line in the Yattendon area, Frilsham was completely cut off from the SSEN network with 270 homes in the village affected.

Frilsham residents banded together during the crisis, with those who had generators offering them out to others, and camp stoves being shared so meals could be cooked.

Tessa Allum, a Frilsham resident who handled the communication between SSEN and the village, said: “This was a very unusual fault. We spoke to engineers who said they’d never seen anything like it. It was not your average power outage.”

The outage began at around lunchtime on Thursday, when lights flickered on and off in a number of Frilsham properties before a full power cut came into effect.

The cut affected the entire village, and even some properties in surrounding villages such as Hermitage and Cold Ash.

Mrs Allum also said: “Frilsham really pulled together. Everybody looked out for their neighbours.

"Anybody who might be vulnerable or particularly badly affected had somebody, a neighbour or a friend checking in on them to see if they were okay.”

By Friday, Frilsham had made direct contact with SSEN, and the electricity and distribution network set up a welfare centre at the Frilsham Clubroom so residents could charge their electrical devices and find out more information about the ongoing situation.

SSEN also set up a food van that provided hot meals to residents who had no way of cooking at home.

Over the course of the weekend, SSEN visited each of the 270 affected properties in Frilsham four times.

They disconnected properties from their network, checked for any damage to wiring, reconnected properties to the network, and then checked any personal electrical items that might have been damaged.

One Frilsham resident stated: "I honestly do believe that the turn round from SSEN has been first class.

"With one or two exceptions, and clearly a lack of resources on Saturday, SSEN have done a wonderful job of disconnecting, checking and reconnecting the whole village."

Another commented: "They had a nightmare of a job to do, but still remained polite, friendly and professional. Well done to them."

SSEN vans, engineers and workers flooded the small rural village on Sunday to try and get the issue sorted as quickly as possible. Most houses had full power again by that evening.

A spokesperson on behalf of SSEN said: “SSEN apologises for any inconvenience this interruption to supplies caused while engineers worked to restore power as safely and quickly as possible.”