RESIDENTS in a Bolton street have accused an electricity company of avoiding compensation payouts despite their power having been cut for 33 hours.

People living in York Avenue, Little Lever, had their electricity cut off at 7am on Monday morning and restored at 4.30pm yesterday.

But because the power came back for a few minutes at a time during that period, United Utilities do not have to pay compensation to the 12 households affected, the residents say.

During the power cut, the residents were unable to cook, take a shower or watch television.

Anne and David Hickson are furious that their phone calls to United Utilities appeared to be ineffective.

Mrs Hickson, aged 59, said: "We call them Useless Utilities on this street because I can't believe how bad they have been.

"The electricity went off at exactly 7.20am on Monday, but they are even disputing that.

"The electricity came back on for four minutes at 10.20am yesterday and that will get them out of paying compensation because the power has to be off for 18 continuous hours.

"We've been walking around like its the dark ages with candles. I had £62.20 worth of freezer food that is not fit for eating but they have said I will have to go through my insurers for that and the excess is £100.

"I coped with a few hours of electricity a day during the miner's strike in the 1970s, but this is far worse in this day and age."

Colin Barlow, aged 56, said: "It first went off around 7am on Monday morning. They said it came back on for a bit but it didn't.

"It seems ridiculous to take so long to get the job sorted. I dread to think what it would be like if there was a major disaster. Everyone is furious but we can't do anything about it."

The problem was with fuses in a low voltage underground cable supplying 12 houses in York Avenue. Repairs were carried out throughout Monday.

Engineers had to dig further into the ground to fix the cable, but the repaired fuses blew again.

A United Utilities spokesman said: "It is true that, because power was restored at various intervals, the customers affected are not entitled to our guaranteed standards of service payment. Any customers who are not happy with this can call or write to our customer services department and we will look at each case to see if a discretionary payment is appropriate.

"We do apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused by the loss of electricity and we would like to reassure them that we have been working as fast as we can, night and day, to get their power back on."