Many Weir Estate Residents had their electricity power cut off on Thursday Morning due to a mains explosion in West House, leaving some residents without any power from Wednesday afternoon.

Emergency works were carried out after mains fuses blew in West House which forced the shut down of all electric supplies to the whole estate.
Some residents in West House had been left without power for over 12 hours when the incident began on Wednesday afternoon.
EDF Engineers who initially attended had been unable to find the problem due to trying to get into an old bin chamber which they thought contained the fuse box.

Supply was restored to the whole estate by noon on Thursday which had been shut off as a safety precaution, though works are still needed to fully solve the decades old fuses which will now be completed by Lambeth Living Contractors.

Some residents reacted furiously to having no electric particularly those with babies and young children.

An EDF spokesperson said “EDF Energy Networks engineers had a report of a power failure on the Weir Estate at 4.52pm yesterday (Wednesday.)  After difficulty in gaining access to investigate further, engineers isolated supplies to 72 customers at 9.25am today. No fault was found on the EDF Energy Networks system and the problem was located to the internal network, which is the responsibility of the landlord.  EDF Energy Networks restored supplies to the isolated customers at 11.20am and apologises to those who were without power during the course of our work.”

The loss of power also resulted in a blackout in the entire West House block.

WERA Chair Dave McEvoy commented “This was an unfortunate set of circumstances which resulted in all supply being cut off on large parts of the estate. I have now requested a total inspection of all blocks via our Estate Services team at Lambeth Living to ensure there is no further disruption to mains power. I am pleased that the power was restored quickly as this situation could have been so much worse”

As a result a full survey of all mains fuse boxes is to be carried out as confirmed by Senior Estate Services Officer, Richard Rivers Simpson “As soon as I was contacted by the associations Chair, I arranged for an electrician to attend from our contractor and now have ordered a in-depth inspection of all blocks fuse boards to ensure that there is no further problems or danger to residents”

This inspection to ensure that no future occurrences of this nature occur again will be carried in the next week. Though residents should not, see any more disruption to their electricity supply.