Electricity North West has launched a new tool for customers which they say will boost storm resilience.

This new tool will mean customers won’t have to ring 105 as part of a £16million investment in storm resilience over the past year.

As the Northwest approaches the anniversary of Storm Arwen, the company responsible for maintaining the region’s power network said it has further invested in its communication channels to enhance customer service and ease of reporting damage.

Along with improving automation, Electricity North West has also invested more than £7million in other areas such as network resilience, restoration times, and cutting back trees in key areas around overhead lines.

The new online tool allows customers to report faults from an exact location and upload images of any damage or foreign objects within electrical assets throughout any storms. 

Stephanie Trubshaw, customer director at Electricity North West, said: “Winter is a crucial time for us as extreme weather can pose a serious risk to parts of our network.

“We are always working to reduce that risk and to restore power to as many customers as possible as quickly as possible.

“We’ve spent this year further strengthening the network to minimise disruption of severe weather on power supplies, and enhancing the ways our customers can contact us following all issues experienced last year.

“We always hope that our preparations aren’t needed but, if they are, our engineers and customer service teams are on hand 24/7 to respond, whatever the weather.”

Storm Arwen was the biggest storm the UK had seen in a generation, with more than a million properties nationwide suffering power cuts caused by trees falling on overhead powerlines.

In the Northwest, 93,000 properties out of 750,000 served by overhead lines in the path of the storm – lost power, with 18,000 of those having their electricity restored within three minutes.

Nine out 10 properties affected had their power restored within 48 hours despite weather conditions making it impossible for engineers to climb and make repairs initially until the storm had died down.

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