PARISH councillor Francis Morland was arrested in Chapmanslade on Friday after he refused to allow engineers on to his land following a major power cut that affected a number of homes near Warminster.
Police were called to the village near Warminster after Mr Morland reportedly tried to turn away Scottish and Southern Electricity engineers from SSE energy from his land at Row Farm Nursery. 
The mains supply had failed at 8.30am, affecting homes in the village, in nearby Corsley and also in the Hawkeridge area.
SSE apologised to those affected and said electricity supplies to 268 properties were initially interrupted on Friday but engineers were able to re-route the majority of homes. This week 28 customers were still without power.
The company said a number of those were customers who needed support during a power cut because of medical issues. To restore power engineers needed to get on to private land and, despite a legal requirement, they were not allowed to. 
An SSE spokesman said: “Our discussions with the landowner had reached an impasse, and they would not grant us access to our equipment. As it is an offence to deny us access to our equipment in an emergency situation, we contacted the local police and asked for their help to mediate with the landowner.”
Mr Morland, of Dead Maids Close, said this week he had contacted the Police Complaints Commission over the force’s handling of the situation.
He said: “There was no breach of the peace by me (or anyone else), and the actions of the police were entirely unjustified. 
“There is a long-running dispute with SSE over the numerous power lines crossing Row Farm Nursery. Their previous position has always been that they accepted they did not have any legal right of access without my agreement or a magistrates court order. 
At no stage did SSE explain why they had changed their position or serve any notice or produce any paperwork to explain it. Indeed, at the late stage in the events when I got back to the nursery they made no attempt to speak to me at all. As a matter of fact,
“Even if they did have a legal right of access, as they are now seeking retrospectively to claim, I did not obstruct them in any way at all. 
“I even arranged before my arrival for them to have access to inspect their power lines to identify whether there was a problem. 
"There was no breach of the peace by me (or anyone else), and the actions of the police were entirely unjustified. These are the subject of a complaint to the Police Complaints Commission."

 
Wiltshire Police said on Friday: “We were called shortly before midday on Friday to an address in Chapmanslade following a report of a disturbance. One man, aged 73, has been arrested on suspicion of breach of peace and is currently in Melksham custody.” Police later said the man arrested on suspicion of a breach had been released under investigation.
A neighbour who runs a nursery in Chapmanslade, said: “The electricity went off at about 8.30am on Friday. I had to go out but when I returned at about 11am it was still not working.
“People all over Chapmanslade were affected along with those in other villages and some in Warminster. It was a real problem for me as I have young animals and one of my piglets died as we could not get a heat lamp on it. We were without electricity for 13 hours until SSE was able to set up generators.
“It has caused real problems for a lot of people. We are still without mains electricity now.”


The Scottish and Southern Electricity networks spokesman added: "We would like to apologise to customers in and around Hawkeridge and Corsley who experienced a power cut last Friday. On the rare occasions there is a power cut, our priority is always to get our customers’ electricity back on as safely and as quickly as possible and our engineers worked hard to ensure that everyone was back on later that evening.”