£14.5m Investment in East Birmingham Power Network

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Western Power Distribution has invested £14.5 million on its electricity network in the Yardley area of Birmingham, to manage future demand from the city and to further safeguard supply reliability.

WPD became the electricity distribution business responsible for the Midlands in April 2011, and this new initiative involved it laying 2.5 km of cable between Sparkbrook and Kitt's Green and installing a new major substation that supplies electricity to around 17,000 customers in Yardley and the surrounding areas.

"Our aim is to invest to maintain the reliability of electricity supplies for years to come," said Lawrence Wall, WPD's West Midlands Projects Manager.

"We are committed to providing a consistently high level of service to customers and will have spent over £2 billion on our network between 2010 and 2015.

"We have worked closely with Birmingham City Council throughout this work, to ensure that the new substation would blend in with the surrounding park area and cedar panels have been used on the outer facing walls to achieve this."

Note for newsdesks:

• Western Power Distribution (WPD) is the distribution network operator for the Midlands, South West England and South Wales, and is responsible for delivering electricity to approximately 7.7 million customers in the UK.
• WPD is not an electricity supply company and does not bill customers in the UK. Its responsibility is to distribute electricity from the point of generation to homes and businesses.