'Bird strike' cut power supply to hundreds of New Forest homes

A BIRD flying into an electricity line resulted in hundreds of properties being left without power in a New Forest hamlet.

The alarm was raised around 4.30pm on Sunday after the incident in Hangersley Hill, Hangersley, near Ringwood, and engineers from Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) were dispatched.

A total of 466 customers in the area lost their supplies, and the team spent just under two hours reconnecting them.

Firefighters had also been alerted to reports of a small blaze as a result of the bird hitting the pole-mounted line, but there were no flames when crews from Ringwood and Burley arrived.

They remained at the scene for about 20 minutes damping down the area to prevent further flare-ups.

A spokesperson for SSEN said the lack of lasting flames was thanks to a safety feature which ensures the power is cut off if the wire is struck.

“While the immediate impact to the equipment would have caused some sparks to be visible to anyone passing by, as soon as the safety equipment detected the contact it would ‘trip’ and shut the power down,” the spokesperson explained.

“We would like to apologise to our customers who were affected by the power cut on Sunday afternoon, and reassure them that our engineers did everything they could to restore their supplies as safely and as quickly as possible.”