Power cuts plague area

Sanctuary Housing has had to call on Scottish Power and Scottish water to help restore normality in Ainslie Road after surface demolition work by contractors Scotdem was linked to a number of sudden cut-offs in supply.

The News has been inundated with complaints from householders who believe that the building site is causing constant disruption to their day-to-day lives.

We understand that the area backing on to the demolition site was left without street lighting for a month.

As we have reported, the location will be transformed into affordable new social housing - but in a double blow, the project has yet to receive funding from the Scottish Excutive - with work supposed to start next month.

Irate Jacqueline Mitchell of Maclehose Ainslie Residents Group said: “We are just not prepared to put up with this. It is bad enough not knowing when the building would get underway but now you have a situation where elderly people and children are being left without water and electricity.

“It is absolute disgrace. The power cuts have affected both the housing and the street lights - the area that backs onto the demolition sight has been without street lighting for a month.

“Elderly people are frightened to go out. And there are a lot of damaged paths here so you could easily lose your footing.’’

Meanwhile it has emerged that ANOTHER neighbourhood in the shadow of a building site has been beset by power cuts- as Sanctuary brings new homes to the area.

Work on the giant construction site which has seen much of Carbrain fenced off was linked with the failure of street lighting, plunging areas like Carbrain Gully into darkness.

Contractors working for North Lanarkshire Council confirmed they had been called to the area on several occasions.

An NLC spokesperson said: “We received a complaint about lighting in Carbrain on March 15, which was attended to within a couple of days. We then received a further call on March 22, to say the lights were off again. On investigating that complaint, we discovered that some minor damage had been done to one of the cables to the lights during works. That damage was repaired the following day and the lights are now fully functional.”

When the News discussed the problems in both areas with Sanctuary director Peter Martin, he said “Building new houses in densely populated areas always causes disruption and we apologise to everyone for that.

“We immediately notify the utility companies and do all we can to assist if anything goes wrong. We are happy to help even when we’re not at fault, such as the recent sewage scare in Carbrain where we sent men from the site to protect people’s homes.

“The statutory bodies responsible still don’t know the cause of Kildrum’s street lighting fault, or whether it has anything to do with our site. The temporary issue with Carbrain’s street lighting was not the fault of our contractor. We are extremely sorry that five homes in Kildrum went without water after an incident at the Ainslie Road site.

“The site plans we were given did not match the site, but Scottish Water soon restored the supply. We are doing all we can to minimise the disruption, and thank residents for their co-operation and patience.”