In the Cove has been inundated with complaints about Power Outages and Lane Cove Market Square. So we went to the source and asked them the HARD questions. Here is an update.
Power Outages
ITC asked: Why has their been 5 power outages since January 2017 and are they connected?
Ausgrid checked their records and advised that although the outages occurred within a short time period the causes were unrelated.
No cause was found for the January 1 outage. However, the outage on January 11 was caused by wildlife touching terminals on one of their transformers. This event affected 5,000 customers. Another outage on 8th March was caused by a flying fox coming into contact with overhead wires.
There was an unrelated outage on Mar 16 for 3,600 customers in the Lane Cove area, which was caused by a fault on an underground cable which was repaired within 4 hours.
An outage on Mar 17 was caused by a tree branch falling on overhead powerlines during high winds.
Almost half of all outages on the Ausgrid network are caused by external factors such as trees and branches falling on powerlines, lightning strikes and wind damage during storms, wildlife contacting powerlines, cars hitting power poles and vandalism of equipment.
Ausgrid advised that their engineers are continuing to investigate the recent outages and will reinspect the local feeder which supplies Lane Cove in the next two weeks to check there are no ongoing issues.
Ausgrid advised that all electricity networks experience interruptions from time to time – that is why they have field staff ready to respond to faults on the network. Their emergency crews work to restore power as safely and quickly as possible during outages. It can take time to locate faults and make necessary repairs and they are sorry for the disruption the outages have caused residents.
The wet windy weather has resulted in several large tree branches and trees coming down. If they fall on powerlines, there will be outages. That is what happens when you live in leafy lane cove.
If you have lost power or want to check if there is a power outage, you can check the Ausgrid weather.
Below are two tree branches down in the last seven days.
Lane Cove Market Square
Colliers responded to In the Cove’s requests for details of their maintenance schedules for the centre and why has it taken so long to fix the hand dryer.
Toilets
Colliers advised that all the Lane Cove Market Square toilet amenities had new hand driers installed last Tuesday morning. The old hand driers were repaired twice previously however kept failing so they decided to replace these with new hand driers. Colliers also have various works planned for the toilet amenities and parents room over the next 4 weeks to improve the overall maintenance and cleaning presentation of these facilities.
Escalators
Colliers advised In relation to the down escalator, this escalator is due to be back in service the week of 10th April 2017 with parts needing to come from Germany where the escalators were manufactured. The escalators and lifts are maintained monthly by Schindler Lifts Australia in accordance with the manufacturers and Australian Standards requirements, however, Colliers sincerely apologises for the inconvenience that the escalators outage is causing to the users of the Lane Cove Market Square. Colliers also advised that they currently have a travelator not working which is due to be back in service late Friday. The travelator can still be walked on as opposed to the escalator, which safety standards do not allow persons to walk on when the steps are not moving.
Be rest assured that ITC will be keeping and eye on both the power outages and Lane Cove Market Square.
Do you have a local issue you would like help with? ITC is here to help just email us at [email protected]
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