A Facebook post was forwarded to me yesterday by a friend who knows I have experience in the electricity industry…
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wirral/permalink/10163102362827012/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=wz7NeexskCp8sLnI#
The knowns:
1. HV cables (red, plastic-sheathed, 11,000 volts) cannot be worked on live and need to be isolated (their power switched off) in order to remedy any faults
2. HV cables provide supplies to substations where the voltage is stepped down via transformers to create 3-phase 240 volt AC supplies to local houses, businesses, lampposts, etc.
3. When an HV cable is switched off, the power supply is lost to the substation and therefore to the supplied houses, businesses, lampposts, etc.
4. Encasing HV cables in concrete (even if you perceived this as added protection) is an absolute no-no. The act of manually excavating such a cable – live or dead – would be likely to cause further foreseeable, avoidable damage to the cable itself, which should be buried in sand
The unknowns:
1. The location of the substation(s) affected
2. The location of the houses, businesses, lampposts etc. that are supplied by the affected substation(s)
3. The identity (and therefore the veracity) of the claims being made here
4. I don’t know whether HV cables can be worked on live here in the year 2026. But it wasn’t an option during my time at Manweb (1984 to 1995). In the meantime, progress has been made on overhead lines, where linesmen can now work live on HV
As a former Wirral Council whistleblower, I absolutely respect the poster’s decision not to identify himself. Any kind of unguarded transparency would be highly likely to result in him / her being separated from their livelihood, probably very cheaply and carried out in a manner which would protect the employer, i.e. extreme coercion, a sacking disguised as a ‘redundancy’ and the imposition of a non-disclosure agreement.
My initial Facebook response to this post was sent on 17th January:
Wirral In It Together 