Power outage exposed need for 'critical' changes, says commissioner

A MAJOR power outage that knocked several Nottingham City Council services out of action has helped to expose a “critical” change needed at the authority.

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Waste collections and Job Centre appointments were among the services impacted when power went down at the city council's Loxley House HQ on March 13.

Staff worked “round the clock” to fix the issue and power was restored in less than a week, but services remained disrupted days after.

Members of the public and most staff were prevented from entering Loxley House during the power outage and a risk assessment had to be carried out for a public meeting to take place the following week.

Lead commissioner Tony McArdle says the outage helped to expose a growing problem.

He said: “There's a post-mortem as it were on the power outage, but I think it's reasonably clear that wasn't something the council could have foreseen or prevented and an unusual one-off situation.