WITH reference to a recent letter in which the writer blamed power cuts on power workers’ industrial action, Dave Woolven’s reply was correct.

I worked for the CEGB and National Grid for 30 years and can’t recall any such action. The power cuts may have been due to Emergency Load Shedding, an operation carried out when demand outstrips supply. The first to be affected were domestic consumers as switching out industries, hospitals etc would be dangerous. This procedure could well have been used because of low coal stocks, an emergency shut-down of generating plant or the loss of a major high-voltage line into South Wales. I have often wondered why it’s called industrial action when it is quite the opposite.

Derek Everett, Crindau Road, Newport