ARMIES of engineers have been deployed across rural Scotland to prevent the chaos wreaked on thousands of homes following freak snow storms in March.
Around £32 million is being spent on improvements to the electricity network, with particular attention paid to areas in the West of Scotland such as Arran and Kintyre.
Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (SHEPD), the company that owns and operates the power distribution system in the North of Scotland, says engineers have refurbished overhead lines, and inspected, maintained and upgraded electrical assets.
SHEPD has also put advanced weather monitoring systems in place, which give staff warnings of severe conditions, helping engineers to plan ahead and be ready for an impact on the electricity network.
Power had been cut to about 20,000 properties in Southern and Western Scotland after pylons were damaged by snow and ice in the spring.
Most of the properties lost their electricity supply for days after snow storms brought Arran to a standstill the week before Easter.
Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing said: "As we know, severe weather can strike quickly, at any time of year, and can cause a range of problems. While we can't stop the weather causing disruption, we can be well prepared to deal with it."
North Ayrshire Council has also staged a number of dry runs on Arran in recent weeks, with staff checking out equipment and vehicles including snow ploughs, as well as familiarising themselves with the more remote routes, many of them along narrow and twisting roads.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article