Hive workers cause city blackout (From Worcester News)

Hive workers cause city blackout

9:20am Saturday 4th February 2012 in News By Sarah Davies

THIS was the scene at Worcester’s bus station yesterday morning when the city centre was plunged into darkness.

Workmen building the Hive, Worcester’s new state-of-the-art library, caused a city centre blackout when they accidentally struck a power cable with a digger.

Berrows House, the home of the Worcester News, was among the buildings affected by the power cut, which happened at about 8.15am and lasted an hour-and-a-quarter.

Nearly 1,000 homes and businesses in Hylton Road, Foregate Street and areas in between were affected.

Supply to CrownGate Shopping Centre and the bus station was also disrupted, forcing a temporary closure of the multi-storey car park.

Erica Burlace, centre manager of CrownGate, said: “CrownGate Shop-ping Centre, like much of the city centre, experienced a prolonged power cut which meant we had to close our car park.

“Although we experienced temporary power outage on lighting, heating and other services such as escalators, lifts and automated doors, we quickly switched to a back-up power supply to allow our retailers to continue trading with minimal disruption.”

Power was restored to most customers within a matter of minutes, with full supply restored by about 9.30am.

Engineers from Western Power Distribution (WPD) were sent to the Hive to repair the damaged cable.

A spokesman for WPD said: “Power was lost at about 8.15am and just under 1,000 properties were affected.

“Most were back on within the hour.

“The cause appeared to be due to third party damage and construction going on around the new Worcester Library.

“We got everybody back on through feeding supply from alternative routes. We wouldn’t expect there to be any other problems.”

A spokesman for the Hive’s contractors Galli-ford Try said workers were repairing a footpath near the Worcester library site when a mechanical digger struck a power cable.

He said: “Power was out for about one hour before being restored and engineers are currently working to complete a permanent repair.

No one was injured in the incident.”