Fix my power lines, asks home owner in St Peter

Jon Morgan, who lives with his wife and two children at their home in St Peter’s Valley, says they lost power for over 12 hours recently after a tree fell down onto the overhead power lines.

Mr Morgan said being without electricity, hot water and heating can be frustrating, especially as he runs his travel business from home, but he was more concerned that the JEC had not moved the power lines underground, which he claims they promised to do after the 1987 Great Storm.

The JE deny they ever promised to move the cables underground. However, they said that, coincidentally, there were investigations under way as to whether it is feasible to move a cable in the valley underground during planned works to install a footpath.

‘They have had plenty of opportunities to do this, they have put mains water and sewage in. We have been without power on around five or six occasions and it has happened again.

‘My suspicion is that this not a priority because they don’t have many customers here. But we are customer and we want to be treated in the same way as everyone else. We pay the same rates.’

In a statement the JEC said due to the high cost of running cables underground almost all countries in the world deliver electricity via overhead cables.

They added: ‘Unusually, in Jersey’s case, around 95 per cent of cables are underground. As a comparison, in the UK and France, around 90 per cent of electricity cables are over ground.

‘Although prohibitively expensive, JE bury around 4km of overhead cables each year. Approximately 60km of cable remain above ground, the other 1,600 km is underground.

‘St Peter’s Valley is a difficult location to bury an electricity cable. However, a new footpath is planned, JE has been investigating whether the footpath can be used to lay an underground electricity cable.’

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