Agenda item

Paul Bircham, Regulation and Communications Director from Electricity North West will attend the meeting to present on the impact of Storm Arwen across Lancashire and the organisations response.

The Chair welcomed Paul Bircham, Regulation and Communications Director and Helen Norris, Stakeholder Engagement Manager from Electricity North West (ENW) who attended the meeting to present on the impact of Storm Arwen across Lancashire and the organisations response.

Storm Arwen caused significant damage across the UK with railways, roads, buildings, and overhead electricity supply lines all damaged by thousands of falling trees, high winds, and ice accumulation.

The worst-hit area of Lancashire was the Ribble Valley and when final restorations were made here, engineering teams were released to assist other areas in south Cumbria that still had customers off supply.

Comments and questions from the committee after the presentation were as follows:

·  Members suggested that part of the ENW risk management should focus on communication strategies and advising the county council and/or district councils so that councillors could be informed and put out messages on social media platforms to advise local communities.

·  Members requested statistics on properties that were affected in Lancashire by district and how long they were affected for.

·  On the age of infrastructure in rural areas and overhead lines, there was a national standard for resilience that related to tree cutting and clearance around overhead lines and that the standard was based on a risk-based approach. However, generally it did not work at a standard where a piece of infrastructure supplied less than 4000 individual properties, such as Ribble Valley. Whilst the network met or exceeded all the national resilience standards, ENW appreciated that some of those standards needed to be reviewed.

·  It was raised that communication for people without access to the Internet when electricity is down, were not contacted by post. It was clarified that ENW were considering different ways of communicating in the future such as knocking on doors, leafletting, and were in discussions with the Post Office for support in the future.

·  On communication with local councils, it was explained that ENW saw success in communication routes with stakeholders to vulnerable communities and MPs were provided with regular briefings, along with 35 television and radio interviews, however, accept that they can improve on building networks with local councils and will investigate how best to organise this such as a single point of contact.

·  On the provision of generators, it was noted that there were 280 generator deployments, using 140 generators (some deployed more than once). Also, that it was not always safe to immediately use generators, as repairs were required to the network first. ENW were looking into fitting additional equipment to be generator-ready and enhance resilience.

·  It was queried if there was a date for publication of the BEIS and Ofgem reviews, it was explained that ENW would like this to be timely, however, they needed to discuss with the government first as to when government release their review. ENW hoped to conclude its own review within the first quarter of this year.

·  In terms of working with district council officers in partnership with ENW, to encourage private landowners to cut-back trees on their land where risk was presented to power lines, ENW had good relationships established with officers and arborists from both district and county councils but would investigate strengthening these.

·  ENW agreed to take forward the suggestion raised by members of contacting the DWP to cascade information to vulnerable residents on their behalf. It was noted that vulnerable residents did voluntarily supply information to ENW to join their priority services register.

Members thanked Paul and Helen for their presentation and responding to the questions posed by the committee.

Actions:

·  ENW to provide statistics on properties that were affected in Lancashire by district and how long they were affected for.

Resolved: That Electricity North West return to the External Scrutiny Committee after the three reviews have been published to present a summary and answer any resulting questions.