A POWER company have agreed an action plan with Winchester residents following Christmas blackouts.

Community representatives and members of SSE came together in Northington on January 17 to discuss the cuts that lasted up to four days from December 23 due to widespread flooding and fallen trees.

The meeting heard the impact of the outages on residents, as well as agreeing on an action plan to implement the 2014 tree maintenance programme to try and minimise any future issues with storms.

SSE have also agreed to work with the parish council on a resilience plan, which could see the village hall used as a hub in future, open days where residents can meet SSE staff face to face, and as a gesture of goodwill with some form of Community Contribution work.

Parish Council Chairman John Mitchell contacted Steve Brine MP, who organised the meeting with senior members of the SSE power distribution team.

Mr Brine said: “This meeting was an important line in the sand.

“Many of my constituents had their Christmas ruined by these blackouts and we need to be sure everything possible is being done to both mitigate future power failures and prevent them happening which is why the tree programme is so important.

“I’ve had much experience working with SSE after the problems we had in Kings Worthy so it was good to get them back round a table and work through what can be done.”

Mr Mitchell said: “SSE can rely on Northington Parish Council and our residents to do all they can to help them to retain the momentum of this initiative and to ensure the implementations of SSE’s proposals.”