Storm Arwen

Got ours back on just now. Only after a load of phone calls this morning to get them to do anything. Basically been spun a load of lies by Powergrid admin from the start. Took 5 minutes to fix, fuse in the junction box and we've been waiting 9 days. To add insult to injury the house opposite who have been on since Monday went off this morning and they were there within 2 hours. It was only a trip switch. They wouldn't be here yet if we hadn't played merry hell with them this morning
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
This article was written on 1/12/21. As I speak (5/12/21) there are still thousand's of households up here without power.


Not belittling the situation, but I stand by my earlier post that there is still continued coverage on every news bulletin, so claiming in that article that people outside the north don't know, and its not covered, is just not true imo.
Maybe I take more interest than your average joe public, as we've experienced being without power for extended periods, so can empathise. But it seems to me that is just stirring up bad feeling and division.

No doubt lessons will need to be learnt, but a storm with damage of that extent is going to take some coping with.
 
Talking with some people from Nottingham this morning. When I said we had no power they said "Oh were you affected by the storm there"

If this had been in the south it would have been declared a national emergency.
 
Got ours back on just now. Only after a load of phone calls this morning to get them to do anything. Basically been spun a load of lies by Powergrid admin from the start. Took 5 minutes to fix, fuse in the junction box and we've been waiting 9 days. To add insult to injury the house opposite who have been on since Monday went off this morning and they were there within 2 hours. It was only a trip switch. They wouldn't be here yet if we hadn't played merry hell with them this morning
Sometimes when you're in a mire and have so much to do you can't possibly fit it all in its a case if whoever shouts loudest as you've found out today.
Luckily power outage for us was only for one evening so i may have a slightly more laid back view. But to think why don't they get people engineers from all over the country to help isn't that simple. For starters they'd spend half their time lost. They've already got a workload where they are in many cases, believe it or not the leccy companies aren't awash with lads on the ground sitting around with their fingers up they're their ar*e. And there's safety issues. Too many people working on the network means too many potentially switching sections on and off just for starters.
There has for a fair while been a shortage of new poles which may be why so many rotten poles have come down but they'll likely keep that quiet.
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Sometimes when you're in a mire and have so much to do you can't possibly fit it all in its a case if whoever shouts loudest as you've found out today.
Luckily power outage for us was only for one evening so i may have a slightly more laid back view. But to think why don't they get people engineers from all over the country to help isn't that simple. For starters they'd spend half their time lost. They've already got a workload where they are in many cases, believe it or not the leccy companies aren't awash with lads on the ground sitting around with their fingers up they're their ar*e. And there's safety issues. Too many people working on the network means too many potentially switching sections on and off just for starters.
There has for a fair while been a shortage of new poles which may be why so many rotten poles have come down but they'll likely keep that quiet.
You make some good points, but it's continually been reported engineers have been drafted in from around the country.
 
I'm not questioning the effort of the engineers. It's the lies the company have trotted out that has angered me. For example one person said yesterday we weren't on the list because it hadn't been reported. I can prove it was reported 3 times by me and my neighbour.
Before that last week they said it would be on by Friday, so how does that stack up.
They told me this morning it wouldn't be on for 2 days because they had to repair poles and where these were. Well even I know that that isn't our line and it was fixed on Tuesday
They said they'd contacted everyone affected but neither us or our neighbors had any contact
There are loads of other inconsistencies, my neighbour and I tried phoning at the same time and we both got completely different information
I think we only got them here by playing the health and safety card in that I was calving cows in the dark
As I said before it was a 5minite fix
 
Last edited:
I'm not questioning the effort of the engineers. It's the lies the company have trotted out that has angered me. For example one person said yesterday we weren't on the list because it hadn't been reported. I can prove it was reported 3 times by me and my neighbour.
Before that last week they said it would be on by Friday, so how does that stack up.
They told me this morning it wouldn't be on for 2 days because they had to repair poles and where these were. Well even I know that that isn't our line and it was fixed on Tuesday
They said they'd contacted everyone affected but neither us or our neighbors had any contact
There are loads of other inconsistencies, my neighbour and I tried phoning at the same time and we both got completely different information
I think we only got them here by playing the health and safety card in that I was calving cows in dark
As I said before it was a 5minite gix
The unfortunate thing is all these big companies are run from central offices so they have no local knowledge/connection which breeds inefficiency. They may well have thought you hadn't reported it as they may not have a f'in clue where you are unfortunately.
 
The thing is when you phone up the first thing they do is quote your postcode to you so they must know
In a town its easy rural areas postcodes can cover a large area and its only as good as the operator. I have on a few occasions reported pretty big water leaks to UU in places where it blows every other year and what a fight trying to get it through to them where it is and thats it's definitely their water.
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
In a town its easy rural areas postcodes can cover a large area and its only as good as the operator. I have on a few occasions reported pretty big water leaks to UU in places where it blows every other year and what a fight trying to get it through to them where it is and thats it's definitely their water.
When my quadbike got stolen off the hill, it was a struggle to get the police call centre to accept that i didnt have a postcode
 

Landrover

Member
Electric still off here, apparently it won't be fixed until Wednesday at the earliest so said the engineer that was here assessing the lines today, going to have to reroute the original line slightly as can't put new poles in safely where they were originally !
 

Bill dog

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Scottish Borders
Electric still off here, apparently it won't be fixed until Wednesday at the earliest so said the engineer that was here assessing the lines today, going to have to reroute the original line slightly as can't put new poles in safely where they were originally !
Sorry to hear that, I hope you’ve a good supply of firewood n candles !
 
Not belittling the situation, but I stand by my earlier post that there is still continued coverage on every news bulletin, so claiming in that article that people outside the north don't know, and its not covered, is just not true imo.
Maybe I take more interest than your average joe public, as we've experienced being without power for extended periods, so can empathise. But it seems to me that is just stirring up bad feeling and division.

No doubt lessons will need to be learnt, but a storm with damage of that extent is going to take some coping with.
I think everyone reacts in different ways, I have been very fair and respect of the job but after literally being in the eye if the storm , I have not had a single line of information directly from nothern power. Mother in law came today and had a call saying her power was on and she should go straight home to check , 20 miles home and nothing , communication simply does not exist and . we are a small number in a backwater burg, as I filled up the Jerry cans tonight 20 miles away for the 5th time I stood and thought sh!t it’s scary how close we are to a total melt down of society. Many will scoff at my words, 10 days ago I would have too, but man we are sooooo reliant on. Electric and petroleum is not funny oh and it’s really not helping that having visited the pumps several times this week every single station is having afew pumps off…. Somthings gonna give
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top