Representatives of a Suffolk village have demanded UK Power Networks attend a public meeting to explain issues that have led to a series of mini power outages.

Cookley and Walpole Parish Council chairman David Cask said Walpole had been affected by mini power cuts, with power losses for up to 20-30 seconds occurring at any time, before electricity returned.

UK Power Networks says branches touching the line could be on of the causes of the power cuts.

Mr Cask said: “I asked them what keeps causing it. It’s 2014, we never had this in the Second World War.

“The last one was two weeks ago, and other was a week before that. We’ve been affected for the past two years. We have farmers who run business with computers.

“We live in a technological age and we’re relying on continuing power.

“If it’s natural and out of their control I accept that.

“But when you get irritating little things that switch everything off it’s not acceptable.”

A spokesman for UK Power Networks said:“UK Power Networks would like to apologise to customers in Walpole who have been affected by a number of interruptions to their power recently.

“There have been two issues in the area, one caused by a faulty piece of equipment which has now been replaced.

“However, there have also been a number of interruptions caused by tree branches touching our overhead electricity lines.

“In the past, when a transient fault, such as a branch blowing against lines, affected our network, power supplies would remain off until the fault was located and a crew sent to the site to restore power. This could take several hours.

“To improve this we have invested in automation on our systems to cope with this type of temporary problem. This means we can restore supplies from our control centre rather than having to send engineers to fix the problems manually.”