Electricity cable fault sparked new sewer fears

Aug 14 2008 by George Topp, Lanark & Carluke

A BURNING cable for electricity brought traffic chaos to Lanark’s town centre this week.

Newsagent Naseem Tariq is used to problems with the pavement outside his shop in Bloomgate, having suffered over a year of disruption because of a blocked sewer. Although Scottish Water finally repaired the sewer some months ago, he thought the problem had resurfaced on Sunday.

Initially, there seemed to be steam rising through the paving slabs.

But he became alarmed when large amounts of smoke started to filter through, and the paving slabs began to move.

Fearing a possible gas leak he reported the problem, only to later discover it wasn’t gas, but electricity causing the problem. Scottish Power closed one lane as they dug up the narrowest part of Bloomgate.

At rush hour southbound traffic was backed up as far as the Cartland Bridge Hotel.

The fault was said to have been caused by cables which had fused together.

However, Scottish Power went to work on repairing the fault and they hoped the road would be re-opened once more by today (Thursday).