A hamlet feel forgotten about and literally left in the dark after a gas company neglected to tell people their gas and electricity would be turned off.

Those living in Brambledown, which is just off the busy Lower Road on Sheppey, were without power for 12 hours and feel their home is being plagued by roadworks.

This week part of the main road, opposite Greyhound Road, was shut between Minster and Eastchurch following emergency gas repairs by SGN.

It reopened with temporary traffic lights on Tuesday, July 25.

But Linda Ludlow, from Shurland Farm, explained the hamlet hasn’t been told a thing about the works – even though nearly 300 people were without power.

The 75-year-old said: “Our small hamlet has been left out of the loop.

“There have been these emergency gas repairs going on along Lower Road but SGN didn’t tell us they were turning our gas off.

“As soon as I realised I had no gas I called British Gas as they're my supplier. They sent someone out within 15 minutes and said the situation wasn’t right.

“It was only after they’d turned up that SGN explained that they had turned our gas off. No explanation was given.”

Linda, who has lived in the area for 25 years said gas provider failed to tell her and her neighbours about the complete closure of Lower Road while repairs were underway.

She added: “I left early in the morning and then as I was on my way home I saw that the road was closed. My home was just 500 yards away but I was told I’d have to go the other way around.

“It was an hour-long diversion around the whole Island. If I had been told about the road closure I would have gone that way in the first place.

“It’s just a joke here. These companies don’t care about Brambledown. We’re left to our own devices.”

Linda feels the gas company has no thought about the people living in the area and claims traffic lights are still in place on Lower Road today, despite no workers being around.

She added: “Our green bins are usually emptied every other Wednesday but because the binmen couldn’t get to us this week due to the road closure we’re going to go two weeks without the green bins being emptied.

Linda feels that SGN has no thought about the people living in the area and claims traffic lights are still in place on Lower Road today, despite no workers being around.

She added: “Our green bins are usually emptied every other Wednesday but because the binmen couldn’t get to us this week due to the road closure we’re going to go two weeks without the green bins being emptied.

“No one has answered our questions about that either.”

Linda also said that Brambledown residents were without electricity from 10am until 10pm yesterday. Their power supplier, UK Power Networks, has been contacted for comment as those living in the area still don’t know why they had no electricity.

A spokesman said: “UK Power Networks engineers worked as quickly as possible to complete repairs and restore local electricity supplies after a tree brought down an overhead power line in the Lower Road area of Sheppey yesterday.

“After 295 customers lost power at 9.45am, engineers restored supplies to 110 customers at 10.56am and a further 99 properties at 1.34pm. Power was rerouted to the final 86 customers as soon as it was safe to do so at 9.30pm. We apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused.”

Dan Brown, spokesman for SGN said: “Emergency repairs to our gas network following a leak left 19 Brambledown properties without a gas supply on Friday, July 21. We notified as many properties as we could of the loss of supply while we carried out these essential repairs. Our engineers made temporary repairs to the affected pipe, using specialist equipment, and supplies were restored by Saturday, July 22.

“We took the decision to upgrade this section of our network to help ensure a safe and reliable supply of gas is delivered to Sheppey residents and businesses for many years to come.

“Our engineers replaced 75m of our old metal mains with new plastic pipe. This work was carried out on Wednesday, July 26, and Thursday, July 27, along Lower Road, with a road closure in place for everyone’s safety.”