On Thu, 4 May 2006 11:35:16 +0100, Ben Mack wrote:

Hi All

A friend of mine (honest!) needed to move his electricity meter

He spoke to the supplier, who said that he can get any registered
electrician to move it.

A registered electrician has done so, but of course broken all the seals

I understood that only the supplier can move it - is that still the
case?

I recently had a set-to with EDF Energy about the costs they wanted to
charge for a relatively straightforward service alteration. It turns out
that some of the work is contestable, some is non contestable.

'Moving a meter' quite often means moving both the meter and the service
termination. Alterations to the service cable and termination are
'non-contestable'. Only the company owning the cable and main fuse can
carry out any work on the service cable and main fuse.

Moving the meter and carrying out a rudimentary check before reconnecting
supply is contestable work, and can be carried out by persons other than
the company owning the service cable. My choice of words there was quite
deliberate. EDF Energy gave me a relatively short list of approved
electrical contractors who were allowed to carry out the contestable works.

Unfortunately I no longer have the correspondence, but the operative
expression was *approved* contractors. Who approves them I can't remember,
but I don't think it was as simple as a registered electrician. The
contractors listed were all major businesses.

Attitudes between companies obviously differ. I suspect in the situation
you mention, the 'owning' company are taking a fairly relaxed attitude to
who can move the meter and are accepting the work being carried out by a
registered electrician, as distinct from an 'approved' contractor.

--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net