A letter from Jeremy Kite, leader of Dartford Borough Council, in the aftermath of the blackout emergency:

"This past week has been extremely tough for residents in Dartford but now the worst of the incident is over and residents are starting to recover from the ordeal, I think it only right to express publicly some of the issues we were raising with those at the centre of the emergency as the week wore on.

First, I hope may reflect that communications to residents in the early hours of the failure were not as clear or useful as they might have been. We can all appreciate that their main concern was to get power back on but information available to customers via websites was hazy, confusing and not readily available to customers without power. Things improved once local newspapers and radio were engaged on the story and I thank them all for their assistance.

Second, as council leader, I am surprised that doubts have arisen within EDF about the obligation to compensate local residents and customers. It is clear to me that they should pay and that should insist they do.

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.

I have written to both and making clear my view that fair compensation MUST be paid.

Thirdly, this week’s power failure created by accident an opportunity that ministers had no courage to bring about themselves. For one brief, beautiful moment it paralysed the tolls at the Dartford River Crossing and gave us all the ‘scrap the tolls’ experiment we have long been asking for.

The result was no surprise to me or anyone who joined our call for a no-tolls experiment. The traffic flowed more freely, safer and less polluting than at any time since the promise to scrap the tolls was broken.

Of course I expect nothing to change because so much cash is involved, but 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.

Finally, whilst the highly paid directors of may have cause to reflect on the company’s communications and security this week I hope all Dartford people would want to join me in thanking their extraordinarily dedicated engineering staff on the ground who worked tirelessly in difficult and dangerous conditions to restore power. I toured a number of supported housing schemes and communities this week in the depths of the power cut and was relieved to find that people were in good spirits and coping well in adversity. That is due in no small measure to the sterling efforts of the police, emergency services, my own Dartford council officers and particularly the British Red Cross and volunteers from who supplied hearty meals and refreshments to residents in need. Not everything went right but agencies pulled together to make things happen.

Lessons must be learned, compensation must be paid and, surprise, surprise, we’ve proved that congestion gets better when the tolls are free.

Dartford people were resilient, caring and resourceful when disaster struck. I am enormously proud of the town and its rallying spirit and determination.

Thank you