Electricity supply

I can assure Colin Maclean 
(Letters, 14 August) that rural, and for that matter urban, distribution networks are configured in the same way now as they were in the days before privatisation.

There are certainly no extra lines to give additional supply security to individual 
customers.

Over the past 50 years, networks have been renewed using more robust poles and conductors, replacing the rather flimsy construction methods of the post-war period.

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Safety considerations preclude the routing of lines adjacent to roads so vehicles striking poles are rare events.

System design improvements and advances in technology have also improved matters.

What has helped immeasurably, however, is an ongoing 40-year proactive programme of tree clearance, which has done more than anything else to improve security of supplies.

Over my 43 years in the industry I couldn’t help but notice that my forays into the countryside on dark rainy nights reduced considerably as these measures took effect.

Alan Cawthorne

Twynholm

Kirkcudbright