PLANS to improve the resilience of electricity supplies in Wellington have been outlined by National Grid following nine major power cuts in eight months.

The company was challenged on the issue recently by Rockwell Green campaigner Andy Denison, who has been bidding to win a seat on the town council for Reform UK.

National Grid chief executive Zoë Yujnovich promised Mr Denison her ‘local team’ would investigate and ‘provide an update on the network performance and availability’.

Now, National Grid Distribution regional operations manager Harrison Blyth has told Mr Denison several upgrade schemes for the area were being developed.

Mr Blyth said: “We continue to proactively invest in the resilience of the Wellington area network and have several upgrade schemes in development.

“As part of work to support new electric vehicle charging infrastructure, we are planning to install several miles of new underground cable.

“This will allow load to be better balanced across the network and enable the installation of additional monitoring equipment to help isolate any future faults more quickly.

“In addition, we are developing a scheme to reinforce existing 11kV circuits serving Wellington, which will involve replacing several miles of network infrastructure in and around the town centre.”

Mr Blyth said currently in the Holyoake Street and Seymour Street area, National Grid was replacing hundreds of yards of overhead lines and steel poles with underground cable, delivering long‑term safety and reliability benefits.

He said there were also plans in Rockwell Green to replace ageing cables to improve circuit resilience.

However, the preferred route passed beneath the main railway line and a watercourse, so approvals from multiple third parties were required.

Mr Blyth said alternative routes presented greater technical and environmental challenges.

He said: “Across three of these 11kV schemes, progress is currently constrained by delays in securing the necessary consents from third parties.

“Electricity distribution network operators do not have the same statutory powers as some other utilities to compel access or serve notice for works.

“I recognise the frustration and disruption power cuts cause, particularly where customers have experienced interruptions more frequently than we would expect.

“Please be assured we take these incidents seriously and work to restore supplies as quickly and safely as possible.

“Recent outages have not been caused by a systemic weakness in the local electricity network.

“Instead, they have resulted from a range of unrelated factors.

“These include two separate incidents where third‑party agricultural activity damaged network equipment, and an unusual outage caused by a bird strike on overhead lines.

“There has also been damage due to bad weather, as well as network faults which, despite our best efforts, do unfortunately happen from time to time on any electricity system.

“Each fault is fully investigated to identify root causes and to determine whether any further action is required beyond restoring supplies.

“Where we identify wider issues, we address them through targeted investment and maintenance.”

Mr Blyth said with regard to future housing growth, the company worked closely with Somerset Council to understand planned development and future energy requirements.