WEST Craven councillors have been given a lesson in problems with 'elderly low voltage circuits' and introduced to Northern Powergrid's 'secret agent' - a 'Bidoyng'.

Following frequent power cuts and disruption to the water supply to homes in the Walmsgate and Manchester Road areas of Barnoldswick since the middle of January, the West Craven Committee of Pendle Council made a robust request for representatives of Northern Powergrid and Yorkshire Water to attend a meeting and explain what they were doing to sort the problems out.

And, at the committee's recent meeting in Earby, councillors were joined by the Yorkshire General manager of Northern Powergrid, Mike Hammond, and an engineer, who brought with him the latest in fault finding kit, a Bidoyng, which has been installed in Barnoldswick in an attempt to stop the power cuts.

Power cuts have led to water supply failures at more than 1,700 homes in the Manchester Road area of the the town as Yorkshire Water's emergency generator failed to kick in when the mains supply failed, heard the meeting.

Mr Hammond told the meeting unfortunately faults in the system happened and could be due to a number of different factors, including the age of the cabling, bad weather and people digging at its sites, potentially damaging its assets, but they were doing all they could to sort the problems out.

After the meeting, Councillor David Whipp, chair of the West Craven Committee of Pendle Council, said: "Since mid-January, an intermittent fault caused fuses to blow at the Butts Mill substation. As yet, the underground fault has still to be found.

"The power company has used a workaround to keep the electric - and water - flowing. The affected area is now being fed from an alternative substation, which has also been fitted with a Bidoyng.

The Bidoyng is fitted with a second fuse, which kicks in if the first one blows. The kit also sends a message about the fault to the company's monitoring station and can measure how far the fault is along the underground line. So far, since the Bidoyng was fitted, there haven't been any further power failures in the area.

"Us councillors are keeping our fingers crossed, but are also pressing Yorkshire Water to attend the next meeting to explain what they've done to ensure there are no more water supply issues, and explain how people can get compensation for loss of water supplies over recent months."