AN ELECTRICITY company has assured customers it ‘constantly works to improve its service’.

The Electricity North West guarantee comes as Great Britain’s electricity network companies were accused of complacency by the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee regarding their response to storms in December, when winds of up to 100mph hit East Lancashire.

Steve Johnson, chief executive officer for Electricity North West, said: “We really do understand the inconvenience caused by power cuts, especially those over the holiday period.

“Our engineers worked round the clock in horrendous conditions, restoring power to 98 per cent of customers within 24 hours, and answering 9,000 customer calls in two days.

“Sadly there is little we can do to stop winds of more than 100mph uprooting trees and blowing them into overhead electricity lines.

“But we do have an ongoing programme to cut back trees near lines, and work hard to restore power quickly when it does go off.

“We are absolutely not complacent, and we are continuing to provide information to both our regulator, Ofgem, and to the Department for Energy and Climate Change, along with other network operators to see if there any lessons that can be learned.”