SUPPORTING CADENT AND MULTIAGENCY RESPONSE TO ONGOING GAS ISSUE IN STANNINGTON AND SURROUNDING AREAS IN SHEFFIELD

Message from Andy Bilclough, Northern Powergrid’s Director of Field Operations.

Northern Powergrid continues to actively assist Cadent and local multiagency partners with their response to the current gas incident in Stannington and the surrounding areas.

We remain committed to helping support the community until Cadent can safely restore gas supplies to all of its customers and manage the resulting increase in demand for electricity until it returns to usual levels.

We have a dedicated team on site working hard since the incident started to help our partners and the community. We thank them for their continued support. Our teams remain on site actively monitoring the demand on our network and supporting local residents.

To support Cadent and the multiagency response, we have:

• delivered new interconnections and installed some generators, where electrically possible, on our network to help switch electricity supplies around, increase capacity and spread demand,
• installed specialist equipment to help us actively monitor demand on this very localised part of our network,
• proactively contacted vulnerable customers on our free Priority Services Membership to offer extra advice and support
• organised catering services which have delivered more than 3,000 meals over the last few days to support affected customers and help reduce peak-time demand on our network,
• provided two customer support vehicles to assist Cadent’s response and help residents,
• ensured no unplanned interruptions to electricity supplies in the community since Wednesday, and
• we have teams on site and ready to respond if any customers’ supplies were ever to be affected.

We remain focused across the weekend on doing all we can to assist the response and ensure that there are no issues with our power network that further impact customers and the local community.

To help ensure everyone continues to have electricity, we are continuing to ask local residents to stagger the use of demand of high energy using equipment like cookers, power showers, washing machines and tumble dryers and only heat essential rooms in their homes. This will help reduce the risk of any temporary interruptions to electricity supplies for the community until Cadent restores gas supplies to all its affected customers.

Catering services continue to be available in the community so customers do not need to use cooking appliances at peak times and can receive a hot meal - and residents can continue to help us reduce load levels on the local cables that deliver electricity to their homes. 

We are actively promoting the location of catering to residents, on our social media channels and with partners.

Today there have been catering vans available since 12 noon at the Car Park opposite Pond Road, Stannington Library, and at Malin Bridge Park & Ride. We also have a catering van on site since 1pm at Stannington Community Centre. 

Services will also be provided tomorrow and details of locations, which align to the areas where we are seeing greatest demand on our local network, will be shared with residents, partners and posted on our social media channels.

We understand this remains a challenging time for those still affected because of the burst water main flooding the local gas network, and our teams will continue to do everything possible to maintain their electricity supplies.

We thank the community for their continued patience and understanding - and the kind words to our teams on the ground who are actively supporting residents, Cadent, the local authority and other multiagency partners with their response.