Narre Warren North MP Luke Donnellan and Landor Court resident Shirley Pepper, who received compensation last week.By Rebecca Fraser
NARRE Warren residents have claimed a small victory over their energy supplier following a series of lengthy power blackouts last month.
Residents living in Landor Court and a section of Murdoch Avenue received compensation from SP AusNet last week for food and medication valued at hundreds of dollars that perished during intermittent power outages.
However, residents have questioned whether the energy supplier will fix the ongoing problem after putting up with more than a decade of power cuts.
During the most recent incident, residents were left to sweat it out in the dark for more than 20 hours with no electricity to run their air-conditioners, refrigerators and lights.
Angry Landor Court pensioner Shirley Pepper (the News, 9 February) called on SP AusNet to take urgent action and said in the years she had lived there power cuts had been regular occurences that had little to do with the weather.
Last week, Ms Pepper received an $80 cheque from SP AusNet to compensate for the food and medication she lost during the blackouts.
Ms Pepper said she was satisfied with the result and that SP AusNet had finally agreed to upgrade the power substation.
“As long as this gets fixed and it does not happen again I will be quite happy. I just want to see this resolved.”
Another Landor Court resident Amanda Biemans said she had received compensation but she was still seeking a guarantee from SP AusNet that such cuts would not happen again, as well as a formal apology.
Ms Biemans has taken her complaint to the Energy Water Ombudsman in a bid to make sure the situation never occurs again.
She remained sceptical about whether the substation would be properly fixed.
Ms Biemans said residents who had lost power for more than 20 hours in one year were entitled to a guaranteed service levy of $100 that would be taken off their energy bills.
But she said despite the fact that residents had already endured 20 hours without power they had to wait until next January to receive the payment.
Narre Warren North MP Luke Donnellan contacted SP AusNet following the latest blackouts and said he was glad that residents had received compensation and the matter was being addressed.
Manager of customer service at SP AusNet Larry Westney wrote to Mr Donnellan last week and said works would be carried out at the transformer installation supplying the area, but this may involve a short interruption to the electricity supply and, if so, customers affected would be notified in advance. The upgrade works were planned for completion next month and should improve the electricity supply and reduce the number of outages in the area, he said.
Another spokesperson for SP AusNet said that in the meantime the company was taking steps to provide assistance with demand loads on hot days and they would be keeping residents informed of developments.
