Businesses lose thousands in power cut (From Daily Echo)

Businesses lose thousands in power cut

7:40am Friday 8th March 2013 in News

WINCHESTER businesses lost out on thousands of pounds after a power failure yesterday.

Part of Winchester High Street was blacked out from 8.45am due to a cable fault in Southgate Street.

Southern Electric had teams of engineers working in Southgate Street all day but said the problem was more complicated than first thought.

Lorne Robertson, manager of Italian restaurant A.S.K. said he was unhappy to lose stock as well as takings.

He said: “This has hit us hard. We will lose about £4,000 from takings, but we have also lost everything in our fridges and freezers. You name it, we've lost it, and it's probably going to cost us £6,500 altogether.

“Hopefully we should be able to get the money back from Southern Electric. We will be going to head office and looking to claim it back.”

Other shops that were closed included Waterstones, Travel Bag, the Royal Oak pub and independent coffee shop Caracoli.

Jewellery shop All That Glitters was able to stay open but only took £80 throughout the day.

Sales assistant Laura Anscombe said: “We've only been able to take cash because our card machines are down and we take a lot of business through online orders so we've lost those.

“It's just coming up to Mother's Day as well so we were expecting to be very busy and could have taken anything between £500-£700. I'm sure Southern Electric has done its best to fix it but we are a family-run business and we have lost a day's takings.”

She added the owner would likely try to claim the loss in earnings back from Southern Electric.

The blackout affected around 40 properties in Winchester and also knocked out traffic lights in St Georges Street, Jewry Street and Southgate Street, with police having to manually direct traffic.

A Southern Electric spokesman last night said they would switch off the power to 15 more customers in an effort to solve the problem.

The spokesman said: “Our engineers have been at the scene since 10am and we are drafting in a new team this evening. We may have to work on a part of the network which is still live which means isolating approximately 15 more customers.

She apologised for the fault and added businesses could register loss of earnings claims by calling 08000 727282 but they were dealt with on a case-by-case basis.