I hope you have had a merry Christmas and wishing you a happy New Year.
It has been a difficult time for our local communities, with
long power outages caused by huge damage to electricity lines and water
supplies in the aftermath of Storm Arwen last year.
I want to say a big thank you to so many: the engineers
reconnecting power in very tough weather, local businesses, generator
providers, and also the local community who have helped out their neighbours.
Clearly, lots of lessons need to be learnt from this crisis.
I welcome the launch of Ofgem’s investigation into what went wrong.
Communications and managing expectations from Northern Powergrid were appalling
throughout the power outages and I will continue to push for significant
improvements to be made.
As you may be aware, I will be holding a series of public
meetings on the response to Storm Arwen across the constituency in village
halls in January. The meetings will ensure local people have their voices heard
by representatives of the companies in question and that there are proper
community representations in the Ofgem investigation.
The public meetings will be held at the following locations:
- 13th
January 18:00 – 20:00, Darras Hall Primary School
- 14th
January 18:00 – 20:00, Bellingham Village Hall
- 27th
January 18:00 – 20:00, Hexham Mart
- 28th
January 19:00 – 21:00, Allendale Village Hall
If you would like to attend one of these meetings, please do
signup by visiting: https://www.guyopperman.co.uk/StormArwen,
calling 01434 239 205 or email: guy.opperman@parliament.uk.
Again, I am very proud of how our community has rallied
through this very difficult time. Please do contact my office if there’s
anything I can help with.
