Vandals 'lucky to be alive' after causing damage worth £60,000 to Wigan borough's electricity infrastructure

The incident happened on Saturday morning in Atherton and despite leaving with nothing, the culprits caused more than £60,000 worth of damage to the local electricity infrastructure.

Engineers from Electricity North West, which operates the region’s power network, say the vandals were lucky to be alive as they took chainsaws to wooden poles which carry lines operating at 33,000 volts.

Damage caused by the chainsaws included one severed wooden pole, a snapped wooden pole and powerlines drooping and falling to the ground, which engineers say could have easily harmed the culprits or passers-by.

Damien Coyle, Electricity North West’s transmission operations manager, said: “We were alerted by members of the public who saw that our equipment had been vandalised.

“They did absolutely the right thing, stayed well back and called us so that we could dispatch engineers to make the site safe and immediately carry out investigations.

“Fortunately, nobody was harmed or injured from what was a very serious and dangerous incident. These poles carry extremely powerful overhead lines and should not be interfered with.

“We have yellow danger of death signs around of all of our assets for a reason and it’s vital people take note and stay away.”

The equipment damaged was only upgraded six months ago by Electricity North West engineers.

Police have been informed and have launched an investigation to track down the people involved.

Insp Adam Wall, of Greater Manchester Police’s Wigan district, said: “This is of real concern to us and Electricity North West regarding the serious risks to safety that were posed and we are appealing for anyone who has any information that may help us in our investigation to call 0161 856 1602, quoting incident 984 of October 22, to ensure we can keep our local communities safe.”

Electricity North West has asked for anyone with information to contact the police.

The network operator also reminded anyone who sees any damaged equipment to call them immediately for free on 105, so they can make the site safe and dispatch engineers to make repairs.