Storm Arwen: Hundreds without compensation three months on

Nearly 1,000 people have received no compensation three months after Storm Arwen caused power cuts.

Northern Powergrid (NPG) says "industry guaranteed standards require payment within 90 days", which has passed, but has extended the window for claims.

It has paid about 27,500 customers and sent top-up cheques to more than 2,000 initially sent an incorrect amount.

But Mel Watson from Ponteland has had no compensation for 11 days without power and said he felt "fobbed off".

It was "shocking" compensation still had not been paid, he said.

NPG had "even suggested that we did have power" and it would look into whether the family was even eligible for compensation, he added.

"They were very slow to react then and they're even slower now," he said.

"We'll see what happens but I've got no confidence in Northern Powergrid at all."

Severe wind, rain and snow across northern England and Scotland at the end of November left more than a million properties without power.

NPG said that, of 280,000 customers affected in the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire, about 30,000 were without power long enough to be owed compensation.

Its teams had "worked tirelessly" but some payments had taken longer than planned "due to the scale and complexity of some of the power cuts", it said.

"We would like to reassure our customers that if their claim is not resolved by the end of February we will write to them providing an update on the situation surrounding their claim and what action we are taking to resolve it at the soonest opportunity," a spokesperson said.

The company said it had extended the time limit for claiming compensation to six months, ending on 30 June.

An interim report into all the power companies' responses criticised the difficulty customers had contacting the firms, the length of the power cuts and the time it took to get compensation.

North Durham Labour MP Kevan Jones said NPG's problems lay with senior management "who've got to ask questions" about their response to the storm.

"What's now needed is an entire comprehensive look at the power grid to see whether or not it is fit for purpose and, quite clearly in parts, it's not," Mr Jones said.

"It needs investment [and] it needs government intervention and the regulator's intervention to force them to do it."

Regulator Ofgem said it was conducting a review of the networks' response to Storm Arwen, as part of which it would look at "timely and accurate compensation payments".

It was also looking at "the role of the network companies in maintaining the resilience of the system and their emergency response, including their communications with customers", a spokesperson said.

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