More than 700 Sutton homes were left without heating and hot water for hours yesterday (Wednesday).

The Sutton Decentralised Energy Network (SDEN), owned by Sutton Council, said there was an issue that resulted in more than 700 homes to have no hot water or heating as temperatures dropped in the evening.

This marks the 30th outage in Sutton since 2021.

The SDEN deployed emergency heaters to several residents, which was free of delivery charge, but with a nominal fee of £65.

Sutton Council says that all heaters must be returned to their offices by December 31.

All energies were restored last night in Hackbridge and the New Mill Quarter after six hours.

A spokesperson for SDEN said: “The heating and hot water supply was restored at approximately 9pm on Wednesday evening.

“We believe that our system was affected by some form of power surge that caused a number of equipment failures across the development.

“We are currently looking into what happened and will update customers shortly.”

Although the heating and hot water is back, it takes roughly 12 hours for it to rise to a hot temperature.

Councillor Sheldon Vestey, a Councillor for Hackbridge and Leader of Sutton Labour, said: "This is the same issue as the previous dozen.

“Unfortunately even when heating is restored it takes hours to come up to temperature.

“This means 12 hours without heating or hot water for 1000s of residents in winter.

“Not once or twice but 30 times.”