Thousands of Wirral homes and businesses cut off in power blackout

May 28 2008 by Richard Down, Liverpool Daily Post

THOUSANDS of homes and businesses were cut off after two power stations were unexpectedly disconnected from the National Grid.

Businesses in Wallasey, Moreton, Leasowe, and down into Ellesmere Port and as far away as Runcorn were hit at around 11.30am.

Birkenhead appears to have largely been unaffected but firefighters from the station joined colleagues from Wallasey to check on properties whose fire alarms had been triggered.

Firefighters had to lever their station doors open by hand to get out to calls.

Scottish Power was inundated with calls but engineers were able to quickly isolate the national power source as the problem.

WHSmith in Wallasey town centre was shut along with several other shops for up to an hour.

Store manager Chris Gore said: “It was bang on lunch-time so it hit at a bad time for us and we lost trade. We kept people out until we had checked our fire alarms. There was a fairly good atmosphere despite the cuts.”

Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge Hospitals were not affected and Wirral Chamber of Commerce did not receive any calls from distressed members.

A spokeswoman for the National Grid, the country’s biggest utility, said: “Two power stations came off the network unexpectedly within two minutes of each other, shortly after 11.30am this morning.

“This caused a drop in frequency.

“The system is designed to protect the majority of UK electricity demand, by automatically disconnecting a small proportion of demand to bring frequency back to safe operating levels.

“All available electricity generation was brought onto the system as soon as possible and we are now working with the electricity distribution network operators to reconnect customers as soon as possible.”

Scottish Power, which supplies the area, said that householders and businesses would have to claim on their own insurance for any damage or loss that resulted from the power blackout.

A spokesman said: “It was a very fast-moving problem that affected large parts of the country.

“We were bringing people on as others were going off.

“As yet we don’t have the figures of exactly how many homes and businesses were affected, but it would be in the thousands.”

richarddown@dailypost.co.uk