Bicester Power Disruptions Damage Trade and Lives Locals Concerned

Calum Miller is an MP. He represents Bicester and Woodstock. Locals voiced worries about town power outages. He will meet with a government minister who works on energy security.

About 2,000 homes had no power for up to four hours on Thursday, January 30th. Some Bicester schools even closed that day. Cooper School, Southwold Primary School, and Glory Farm School all lost power, leading to full-day closures.

Mr. Miller brought these school closures up in Parliament on Tuesday, February 4. He told the House of Commons about concerns from Bicester and Woodstock residents, mentioning the closures at Cooper and Glory Farm due to the power loss.

He asked for the meeting with the minister to advocate for a better grid. This, he stated, will help avoid outages that hurt homes, businesses, and public services. Miatta Fahnbulleh, a government official, confirmed the meeting. She stated the government is working on preventing outages from becoming normal. Weather links to some issues, and crews respond as quickly as possible.

After his speech, Mr. Miller said the area should be like Silicon Valley. He thinks the government needs to invest to prevent the disruptions caused by energy problems that hold back businesses. He is glad to discuss solutions with ministers.

Bicester has seen several power outages lately. An overhead power line fell last October, cutting power to over 400 homes. Over 1,000 homes lost power last July in an outage that lasted all day.

Bicester is part of a new growth plan forming an Oxford-Cambridge corridor, as outlined by Rachel Reeves last month. Mr. Miller wants to hear from locals about their power issues before his minister meeting, and schools in Bicester were asked for comments.