Urgent repairs to leave 1,700 without power in Bantry on Thursday

A spokesman warned that if an unplanned additional failure occurs before the repairs are done, Bantry town and surrounding area could see a power outage that could last up to 48 hours

ESB Networks has confirmed that it has issued an outage notification to 1,698 customers in the Bantry town area from 9am to 5pm next Thursday.

Almost 1,700 people in Bantry, West Cork, will be left without power for most of next Thursday to facilitate urgent repairs to the town's electricity network.

ESB Networks has confirmed that it has issued an outage notification to 1,698 customers in the Bantry town area from 9am to 5pm next Thursday while it repairs a fault in the town’s 38kv station. A critical piece of infrastructure failed and requires urgent replacement, a spokesman said.

Next Thursday is the next available date where the system and resources are available to do the work, he said. And he warned that if an unplanned additional failure occurs before the repairs are done, Bantry town and surrounding area could see a power outage that could last up to 48 hours.

ESB Networks said while the network is switched out to do the repairs, it also plans to carry out timber cutting to ensure public safety and it plans to complete overhead line works to “remove a conflict” from a housing development.

“This additional activity will reduce the need for further outages required to carry out these works subsequently,” the spokesman said.

“These outages, if not co-ordinated to run simultaneously, would have affected a large portion of the customers effected on the 29th so our local management team has brought these tasks forward to avoid further disruption to the town.” 

The comments were made in response to queries from the mayor of Cork county, Cllr Danny Collins.

The ESB Networks spokesman said they appreciate the inconvenience this outage will cause, but he added: “If this outage was unavoidable we would defer but as we are responsible for the safety of our customers and the network it is imperative that this work is carried out urgently.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience that will be caused but my colleagues have had to schedule this job urgently to enhance the robustness of the local network as we approach winter storm season.”