DARTFORD Council leader Jeremy Kite is demanding residents and businesses are compensated for losses suffered during the power cut.

He says he has written to EDF Energy Network saying they should compensate the thousands of people affected by the three-day power failure.

Cllr Kite said: “Whatever the cause of the incident, it is absolutely clear that customers are entirely blameless.

“It would be totally unacceptable if local people and businesses were denied reasonable compensation either because unreliable current had occasionally been restored amid long days of darkness or because vandalism overcame levels of security that customers had no part in determining.”

He also says that the power cut demonstrated why the tolls on the Dartford Crossing should be scrapped by ministers.

Cllr Kite said: “The traffic flowed more free, safe and less polluting than at any time since the promise to scrap the tolls was broken.

“If there is a silver lining to this week’s cloud it is surely that the government can no longer be in any doubt that the congestion, poor health, appalling air quality and lost efficiency caused by the Dartford tolls is nothing to do with traffic numbers as they say it is, but everything to do with the money they refuse to stop collecting.”

Regarding the issue of compensation, a spokeswoman for EDF said: "We are discussing the issue of payments with Ofgem.

"In this case, the issue is complicated by the fact that this is an exceptional event and that police are investigating the possibility that the incident was started by unauthorised people interfering with the cables."