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On some occasions, half the village loses power. Yesterday, the whole village did. The shop lost business, the pubs lost business, people running businesses from home lost income. Sthn Elect couldn't even coordinate their stories: I was told categorically by different functionaries that it was (a) a cable down in Lower Heyford, (b) a widespread network problem beyond the local area, (c) a cable down in Middle Aston (apparently the latter was true, so why the conflicting stories?).

5-6 years ago there was a run of power cuts. Then things seemed better for a while. 18 months ago, they returned to the situation prevailing in 1911 in a third-world country rather than in the 21st century 10 miles from Oxford. I have had 6 (SIX!) significant power cuts in 2011 alone, not counting fluctuations sufficient to reset electric clocks (there was one the evening before last). To me, that is evidence of a corporate culture (there are less polite terms for this) that doesn't invest in infrastructure, doesn't modernise worn equipment - cables, switchgear, transformers - and doesn't employ enough staff, because shareholder profits come first. The customer comes second. And there are legal loopholes to hide behind so compensation rarely if ever need be paid out.

I spoke to a reporter called Ben at the Oxford Times (01865 42 52 62, then ask for the news desk), who may be able to write an article about this if enough people who are sufficiently annoyed (his words) contact him.

Shaming a large corporation in the press works sometimes, and may be the only way to get them to do something.

Yoni

340744

I agree completely. There's no question we get a disproportionate number of power cuts in the village.
On the corner of Northside and Paines Hill, we feel particularly aggrieved because whenever it's half the village
that loses power, we always seem to be in the wrong half.
I have registered a complaint with Southern Electric and have been promised that a manager will call me back within 24 hours.
I'll let you know what he has to say.
It wouldn't do any harm if other villagers also logged complaints.

I have emailed Tony Baldry, who promised to speak to the chief executive of Sthn Elect.

Totally agree with Yoni.  I too complained to the suppliers to be told I would be contacted by the manager within 24 hours.  It is now 3 days ago and nothing.  Interestingly, when I called them for the second time at 4.10 pm on Tuesday, I was told that the village was indeed back on.  I pointed out that North Side was ouit as was the shop.  To which the young lady apologised and seaid that she would get the crew who had reported all to be well to re-investigate.  We came back on at around 6pm.
I was also told, according to their records, that my postcode had not had any breaks in supply since 2009.  I seem to remember being off for a long period of time earlier this year and numerous times over the past coupkle of years.

I did get a call back from a manager at Southern Electric today after lodging my complaint.
I was quite impressed by his helpfulness and willingness to listen and explain.
However, our conversation was less productive than it might have been because the computer records
he had of all the power outages in my post code were inaccurate.
Twice in January, we vividly remember lengthy power cuts extending in to the evening
because we were forced to go out and pay for hot meals.
Neither of these outages appeared on the computer record.
Between October 2010 and April 2011, only two very brief outages were on the record
on 22nd December and 15th January.

Oh great, now it's brazen porky pies time ...

As to willingness to listen and explain, these people have a script. Their job is to mollify the customer, but promise nothing. They are instructed to use the word 'frustrated', never 'angry' ("I hear where you are coming from, Sir, I totally sympathise, you must be so frustrated"), because 'angry' implies that they may be at fault whereas of course it's nothing to do with them, not ever, it's 'frustrating' just as a meteorite strike is.
Talk is cheap. I have stopped being impressed by these people's glibness long ago.

And today: a spot of rain, and four glitches already (it's not even 5 pm yet).

These people couldn't organise a mass escape from a wet paper bag.

For what it's worth, I don't actually think the manager I spoke to is telling untruths.
In assessing the reliability of the service provided to the village, he is however wholly reliant
on a computer record of outages that is manifestly inaccurate.
Yesterday, I had two follow-up calls from S Electric.
The first came from a woman whose job is to follow up complaints and check to see if a customer is satisfied
with the response given. No prizes for guessing my reply on the service reliabilty point.
The second call followed almost immediately and came from another manager.
He gave me the impression the penny was dropping about the inaccuracy of the computer records.
If anyone else in the village is in touch with S Electric, I think it would help to press this point about the inaccuracy of the records.
I suspect nothing much will happen to prioritise the problems facing our village until the managers responsible
can see on their screens how frequent the power cuts really are.

I wasn't accusing the manager personally of telling lies, only of being glib.
The inaccurate records, imo, are another indication of a corporate culture where the customer is prioritised last of all. And why not? We are, in effect, a captive audience even if in theory we have some 'freedom of choice', which ultimately is rather illusory. The big shareholders with their demand for maximised dividends are the ones calling the shots, and the regulator is a toothless lapdog.

Following two blips in the electricity on Monday evening and another today (Wed) I again called the SEB and was put in touch with John Fleet from Yarnton who explained that the line serving the greater part of Steeple Aston and beyond has an intermittent fault which they are trying to locate.  They are placing sensors on a number of electricity poles to identify where the problem is but due to the nature of the breaks (very short but long enough to cut the computer or electric clock) the fault can only be found be an elimination process working along the system.  He assured me that the problem will be identified and thus dealt with but it might take a few more breaks in supply to do so.  I understand he is coming to visit Yoni at home to discuss in more depth the problem and he did apologise for the inconvenience caused.  Watch this space!

He did visit me, yes, and showed me charts and block diagrams and maps galore, covering all the points made by Richard above. He seems to think the most likely cause is defective insulation somewhere.

Another spot of rain yesterday, another power cut (well, what else? Rain is such an unlikely event, they can't be expected to plan for rain and volcanic eruptions in the Cotswolds and comet strikes, can they now?).

As we all know the power went out on Saturday afternoon (during the village fete) and when I rang customer support at Southern Electricity they claimed this was the workmen taking down the system to repair a fault that had been causing all the problems.

Fingers crossed and touch wood, we may have seen the back of this problem.... You know when I typed that bit I half expected the lights to go out