Street’s power outages and dips plague residents during cold snap

By Harrison Galliven, Local Democracy Reporter

Residents on a Croydon street say they have suffered weeks of power cuts and fluctuations that have left them unable to have a hot shower or use their microwaves.

Households on Preston Road in Upper Norwood say they ‘haven’t seen anything like this before’ after being left without adequate heating during the January cold snap due to the ‘unexplained’ power cuts.

For some, the issue still persists, with power levels reportedly not returning to normal. The problems began on the evening of January 13, when a full power outage struck most of the street, only partially restored by 11pm that day.

Residents claim it wasn’t until 4.30pm on January 17 that all homes had power restored, leaving the street without adequate power for virtually the whole working week. UK Power Networks claims it was restored to all homes by January 16, but it has reportedly remained far weaker than usual.

Daniel Price, who recently moved to the Croydon road with his partner, said: “The strangest thing for me was that the power came back on at night, and then in the following few days, we had electricity, but it was not at the level it should be. It took me a while to realise that was the case.

“We couldn’t use our boiler because it hasn’t got enough power. We can make the microwave run, but it doesn’t run at the wattage to actually cook food. It will turn, but you’re left with cold food.

“We can’t have a hot shower, so I have been going down to the gym to wash. We can’t do our laundry because we can’t use the washing machine, so when you’re done at the gym, you can’t even launder your towel.

“My partner and I were pretty cold because we could only use a radiator in one room. We could just about manage, though; if you have medical problems or are elderly, you would be screwed if this happened again.”

Mr Price added: “The lights are constantly flickering, it is all all very, very weird. I was talking to a neighbour across the road who has a couple of kids. They said they can run the boiler in the morning, but once people start using the electricity when the sun goes down, the power drops for the whole area.”

Maria McGee, a long-time resident who has lived on Preston Road for nearly 50 years, believes UK Power Networks have not dealt with the outages appropriately. She said: “We usually have one power cut a year, so why have we had three already this year?”

She added: “I had just come back from holiday in Switzerland at the time. I got home around three or four in the morning and returned to darkness in my home. I had to go around with one of those Florence Nightingale lamps.”

Despite the ongoing frustration, residents have banded together to support each other with a WhatsApp group set up for the street being used to offer help to each other.

A UK Power Networks spokesman said: “We would like to apologise to some residents in the Preston Road area after recent power cuts caused by a complex cable fault which took a few days to fix.

“Our engineers were called to Preston Road, Norwood at about 7.20pm on January 13 and restored power to 36 properties in about an hour, and to the remaining 35 by 11.43pm. To carry out the repair, we had to temporarily interrupt power to one additional customer, and their power was restored by 12.49am on January 14, with the work completed on January 16.”

Pictured top: Preston Road (Picture: Google Street View)