CUSTOMERS should receive at least £60 each for every day they went without gas during an outage last year, according to the Jersey Consumer Council.
In a formal “letter of claim” to gas provider Island Energy, the JCC estimates that compensation along these lines would amount to a minimum of £176,400.
Thousands of Island Energy customers were left without gas from Saturday 7 October last year, and while some were reconnected from Friday 13 October, others still complained of being without gas three weeks later, with some left with no option but to take cold showers.
JCC wants the gas provider to, as a minimum, match the compensation offered in the UK – which is at least £60 for every 24 hours a customer is without gas.
In its “letter of claim”, the JCC sets out the amount of money it thinks IEG should pay out. The minimum total is £176,400, which would compensate the 420 customers JCC is representing for being without gas for seven days. The consumer council calculates that the “maximum initial exposure” IEG faces is £529,200, if all 420 customers were without power for three weeks. The council says it is still compiling data on the scale and timing of the outage.
JCC chair Carl Walker said: “This is the latest correspondence in our battle to get a better deal for the consumer.
“We stand by the fact that the compensation offered is an insult to consumers, some of whom spent up to five weeks without the ability to cook, have a hot shower or heat their homes.
“We accept that legal proceedings can take time but we will not give up our fight.
“All we are seeking is for people to be treated fairly; we are not being unreasonable. I hope that this can be resolved in a sensible and amicable way before it reaches a courtroom.”
The JCC’s latest letter to IEG says that the council is “amenable to a meeting with a view to exploring settlement”.
However, it adds: “We would prefer to first receive an admission of liability and a revised offer of compensation for the consumers the JCC represent prior to any such meeting taking place so as to ensure that any such meeting has a firm position from which negotiations can move forward rather than such a meeting potentially otherwise simply being used as a tactic to delay matters without any substantive progress ultimately being able to be achieved from the same.”
The JCC asked IEG to respond within 14 days.
A company spokesperson told the JEP: “We apologised to our gas customers for the disruption to the supply in October 2023 and refunded them with the equivalent to one month’s standing charge following the outage.
“We are focused on continuing to deliver our energy services to customers on the Island.”
