EDF to improve services

We have had a lot of power cuts in the borough in the last year. Wallington and Carshalton have been most badly affected by these with some of these power cuts lasting for to 20 hours and some areas suffering from repeated cuts.

I asked EDF Energy's Head of Customer Operations, Colin Barden to meet me to discuss what they are doing about this and I met with Mr Barden today.

Mr Barden apologised to local people on behalf of EDF for the cuts and explained that they had been down to a mix of problems with their high voltage supply, which had led to parts of Carshalton and Wallington being 'islanded' (cut off from the power network) and to a number of substations failing.

A lot of work has been done to upgrade the power network as a result, including major rerouting of power cables down Bridges Lane in Beddington. And I got a commitment to EDF completing an upgrade of all of the affected substations within the next 12 months.

I also pressed Mr Barden on whether EDF will sign the new Service Level Agreement that has been drafted by OFGEM the energy regulator and I am pleased to report that they will now do this.

And I have asked EDF to work with the Council on its sustainability policies and get involved in the Emergency Planning exercises that the Council carries out regularly with partners such as the police and health. More on these and the future of UK energy and EDF's role in this in a future blog.