FRUSTRATED residents have hit out after Innerleithen was hit with a third power cut in 10 days.

Electricity bosses received dozens of complaints last year as regular black-outs were recorded in the Tweed Valley.

And, despite assurances that work was ongoing to rectify the problems, the outages have continued into 2018.

Charity worker Allan Johnstone believes the power to his home was down 27 times during 2017.

And he has four burnt-our broadband routers to prove it.

Mr Johnstone told us: "These power cuts are not just an annoyance but they cause havoc with electrical equipment.

"We keep being fobbed off with some story about a bird or branch hitting the line or something but surely in this day and age we can rely on a regular electricity supply.

"Since New Year last week my power has gone off three times."

The power outages during 2017 lasted from a couple of hours on occasions down to just a few seconds.

But the disrupted supply leads to electrical equipment either needing reset or replaced.

Mr Johnstone added: "I am onto my fifth router since the start of last year and I'm sure many other people are experiencing similar problems.

"We need Scottish Power to sort this out."

Last year Scottish Power told us that a fault was triggering the supply to be cut off when anything came into contact with sections of the overhead lines running down the Tweed valley.

And that they were continuing to carry out tests to locate the problem area.

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