Living without power on Britain’s hottest night was murder

Hundreds of properties to the south and west of York suffered a power cut last night. For once one of the most important electrical items to fail was not the TV or cooker but the fan!

The issue was with power equipment overheating in the hot weather.

Some people are still waiting to be connected.

There were issues in Tadcaster, Sherburn, Cliffe as well as other rural areas.

It caused a sleepless, sweaty night for customers already struggling to keep cool on what turned out to be a record breaker of a night with temperatures higher than most UK summer days.

June Horner Ferguson and her husband live in Sherburn-in-Elmet and lost power at 7:30pm.

She told us: “It was murder last night.

“We get a message when there is a power cut because my husband has a machine that helps with his sleep apnea.

“They sent one to say it was going to be off till nine and then we got another message to say it was going to be off till midnight and after that no more messages and my husband had to make do without his machine last night.

“The front of our house gets all the afternoon sun, so about nine o’clock we ended up sitting in the garden because it was cooler outside than it was inside.

“But once it got dark we had to come back in. We were using mobile phones and tablets to keep us occupied because obviously there’s no TV and as batteries were going down we couldn’t charge them.

“My sister, who lives in Cliffe, and looks out for our parents who also live there said they had to have a Barbecue as it was the only way to have a meal”

Northern Powergrid says 530 properties in the Front Street area of Acomb have lost power. It’s been caused by an ‘unexpected problem with cables or equipment’.

The distributor says It estimates supplies will be restored by 12.30pm.