Millennium 'total cock up' leaves thousands without electricity

With a series of millennium related incidents having caused problems for several companies this week, the 'blue traffic light' mark awarded to compliant companies by Action 2000 has been severely undermined, says Taskforce 2000.

The most detrimental of these affects upon the public was the breakdown of electrical services for thousands of London Electricity's pre paying customers.

London Electricity has advised around 400,000 of their customers that powerkeys need to be exchanged to ensure their meters continue working after the New Year. However, for some reason, in 25% of cases the new key corrupts the meter and cuts off power.

Many customers have been left without light, hot water or electrical amenities for the past two days. The problem originated, according to a London Electricity spokesperson with "technical problems with a piece of equipment".

This problem originates just three weeks after Action 2000, the Government's Y2K watchdog, announced that Electricity was just one of the public companies which was Y2K compliant.

Just two days ago, Gwynneth Flower, managing director of Action 2000, announced that nearly 80% of Britain's companies were not Y2K compliant.

Robin Guenier, executive director of Taskforce 2000, said of this result "If this result is only partly accurate it indicates a dreadful threat to the British economy and people". He went on to say that, "these results emphasise again Action 2000's hopeless failure to fulfil its remit of turning Britain's high levels of awareness of the year 2000 problem into effective action.

Julie Crisp