Kingston Students were left without power on Monday afternoon after a fire in an electricity substation cut electricity across the borough for over an hour.

Many students working on computers in the library and John Galsworthy Building on the Penryhn Road campus, lost work and had to wait around until the power had returned. Lectures were also disrupted between 1 and 3pm while the problem persisted.

Amy Lee, a second year Business and History student, was working on a library computer at the time the power went down. She said: “It’s really depressing. I’ve got an essay I’m working on and the deadline is Wednesday. I’m working all day tomorrow so this is the only time I have left to do it. It’s so depressing because I have nothing else I can really do”.

Ian Rose, Business Continuity Manager, later announced on the university Student Space that the problem had been caused by a fire at a local electricity substation. In addition to the Penrhyn Road and Knights Park university campuses, 1,000 homes in the Kingston area were affected.

Power was eventually restored by electricity company EDF at 2.10 pm, the best part of an hour after cutting out, and computers were back up and running soon afterwards. However the university email system is not expected to be fully operational until Tuesday morning. 

Ian Appleford, Health and Safety Officer at Penrhyn Road said: “We’re fortunate because at this time of day the problem can be contained. In broad daylight with all services on site we can restore normality as soon as possible. From a student’s point of view it is obviously a disruption but when the system reloads, provided work has been given a title, it will have saved automatically”.

Students complained of a lack of information. Yasir Masood a Masters student studying International Relations said: “I went to ask at the front desk to find out what was going on because I needed to use a computer. But all they said was to speak to EDF. It’s not really our job to have to find out what’s going on. It’s quite frustrating.”

Appleford added: “In this kind of scenario we have an emergency line and a number you can phone to be updated. We still don’t know the exact cause of the problem but my next step will be to contact communication and student services so everyone is informed.”