Traffic chaos and hotel with no hot showers due to cable fault
EMERGENCY work to repair a faulty electricity cable caused traffic delays and left businesses without power yesterday.
Congestion choked several roads as temporary traffic lights were erected on St George’s Esplanade, St Peter Port, to deal with the power cut.
Businesses and properties were left without electricity from 4am, with an emergency generator being used at La Piette Hotel.
The congestion was added to by a one-way system put in place on the South Esplanade, which saw queues in morning rush hour stretching from The Bordage to Rue de St Andre.
‘While it is acknowledged that the temporary traffic lights caused traffic congestion on Wednesday morning, it was deemed necessary to commence works immediately to restore power as quickly as possible,’ said a Traffic and Highways spokesman said.
A spokesman for La Piette Hotel said due to the power outage, guests were unable to shower in the morning, as well as not being able to have hot food as the kitchen could not open fully.
At 10am, they were powering the hotel via an emergency generator, as the mains power problem was still being fixed.
Mike Lloyd, head of distribution at Guernsey Electricity, apologised for inconvenience caused to both people in the area and road users.
‘There was a low voltage cable fault on the distribution network along St George’s Esplanade on the evening of Tuesday 9 October, affecting a number of domestic and commercial customers,’ he said.
‘Our on-call engineers worked through the night to locate and isolate the fault before restoring all supplies by the morning.
‘The emergency works required temporary traffic lights to allow excavation in the road and further works are ongoing to repair the fault permanently.
‘We apologise for any disruption caused to our customers and road users and we understand that this can be frustrating.
‘Our team of engineers are making every effort to complete the works as quickly and safely as possible.
‘The fault was unrelated to the island-wide power cut on Monday 1 October.’
A recurring fault also affected L’Aumone traffic lights yesterday, but by just after 3pm they were working again.
