Villagers plagued with an "unacceptable" numbers of power cuts are demanding compensation from grid bosses.

Homes and businesses in Bridge near Canterbury have suffered more than 40 outages in the last three months which has led to the parish council complaining to the company and calling for action.

Some villagers have even taken to buying back-up power supplies for their computers and having to call out engineers to fix boilers and reset heating systems.

Parish council clerk Jennifer Heap says the amount of power cuts for the village has been expected to put up with is totally unsatisfactory.

In her email to UK Power Networks, she adds: "Not only is it inconvenient but it has cost residents and business owners time and money.

"Bridge Parish Council would like to know when the problem will be resolved and as you have failed to meet Ofgem's guaranteed standards, how the village can be compensated for the inconvenience and cost?"

Many residents have posted on the village Facebook page about the inconvenience and problems the power cuts have caused them, some of which have come without notice.

Retired nurse Peggy Pryer wrote: "I'm getting extremely angry now. Another short power cut that puts my central heating controls up the creek every time. Why is this happening time and time again?"

Speaking to KentOnline, she said: "A lot of people are really cheesed off about it, even having to light candles.

"It's not much fun to wake up at 7am on a freezing cold morning and find your central heating hasn't come on because the timer is out of sync."

Some residents claim the power cuts have even affected electrical components in their boilers which required a technician to fix.

Among the many others to complain is Simon Cook who works from home as an analyst for the Spectator magazine.

He said: "A lot of people like me work on computers from home in Bridge and it's been hugely frustrating to keep losing the power, albeit briefly.

"It means you have to reboot everything and then it happens again.

"But UK Power Networks say they will not offer any compensation because the power cuts only usually last a few seconds."

A spokesman for UK Power Networks apologised for the interruptions to their electricity supply which she claimed was due to a "transient fault" on the electricity network.

She added: "On January 18, our engineers found a fault on a piece of substation equipment, which has been removed from the network while it is replaced.

"This had triggered our automatic switches to operate and proved complex to locate.

"While we are not aware of any further interruptions since carrying out this work, we will continue to monitor the network and take any further action required to ensure reliable power supplies.

"Our overhead line patrols initially pointed to the underlying cause being tree branches coming into contact with the overhead line, so we have already carried out tree trimming in the local area, with further sessions being arranged."