Fears power outages reveal Westhoughton electricity issues

There was a large power outage on the weekend beginning May 10, and another one only a few weeks prior.

This affected home on Church Street and Grundy Street - North of the Market Street substation.

But power supply issues in Westhoughton have been ongoing for several years, despite a length of electrical cable being replaced in 2024.

Town Councillor David Wilkinson said: "The power supply in Westhoughton is poor.

"We just had another blowout on Church street, but it was only a couple of years ago that from South of Grundy right down to the substation on Market they ripped the entire cable out.

"And how many failures have they had at the top end of Church Street over the years?"

Cllr Wilkinson spoke to Electricity Northwest, but does not feel their response was adequate.

Town Councillor David Wilkinson described Westhoughton's power supply as 'poor' (Image: NQ)

He was told that the number of power outages in Westhoughton is not unusual, occurring at a standard rate.

"For the last few years on Church Street there was a number of cable blowouts, so I don't really believe it."

"We get them south of the substation, north of the substation."

Also concerning is the number of Westhoughton traffic light outages, which are becoming increasingly frequent.

The Mill Street and Church Street lights went out yesterday (May 14), after only going out a few weeks previously.

The lights at the extremely busy White Horse junction are also an issue, as are the lights on Market Street.

Cllr John McHugh said: "It wouldn't surprise me if due to a lack of infrastructure there is a lack of capacity.

"The White Horse junction - those lights are often out, and the ones on Market Street.

"The council have said they're going to engage with the electricity company to try and sort out capacity increases."

The issue also came up in a Westhoughton town council meeting, where it was pointed out that planned developments may exacerbate the issues.

Work was undertaken on May 9 to fix the Church Street traffic lights, but the fear is that the issue is only going to become more frequent.

Cllr Wilkinson said that he spoke to a worker at the Church Street lights as they were being fixed, but the worker said they did not know what the actual issue was.

A Transport for Greater Manchester spokesperson said: “There have been a small number of traffic light outages in Westhoughton since the start of the year due to cable damage, power cuts and other faults.

"However, the majority of junctions in the area have not been affected. We endeavour to fix any faults as quickly as possible and apologise for any disruption caused. In most of these cases, outages were resolved within a couple of hours.”