Businesses in Leighton have lost thousands of pounds of custom after being twice forced to close for maintenance to the national grid - only for the work not to be done.
UK Power Networks have twice sent flyers around to the firms based at Leighton Buzzard Garden Centre, in Hockliffe Road, telling them that they would be without power between 9am and 3pm while “essential maintenance” was carried out. On both occasions the work was cancelled at the 11th hour because a sewage pumping station, also due to be affected, would leave homes in the poo without power.
The latest outage was due to take place on July 5. The Coffee Bay cafe laid off staff and notified customers to stay away because it wouldn’t be able to serve food; Eden Beauty cancelled or rearranged appointments and Fathoms Aquatics slashed its staff numbers.
The worst affected was Head Start Nursery, which cares for more than 60 children aged three months to five years, in a Victorian building in the garden centre’s grounds.
Ahead of the first power cut they were forced to spend £1,000 hiring a generator, to continue operations. This time around they had to pay out extra cash on providing special meals while parents had to bring in hot water to heat babies’ bottles.
Val Taylor, who runs Coffee Bay, said power bosses informed businesses later in the morning that the power wouldn’t be going off - but by then it was too late to save a day’s trading.
“It’s the second time they’ve done this and each time we’ve lost business. We’d told all our regular customers to stay away as we need electricity to cook and provide drinks,” she said.
“These people inconvenience you without a care to the trade we lose. We’re all small businesses here. We can’t afford to just lose a day’s takings for nothing.”
A spokesman for Head Start said: “We couldn’t afford to hire a generator a second time but we still have to provide hot meals. We bought an urn and went out and bought food that would not be affected by the power cut. It caused a tremendous amount of inconvenience and expense.”
Jenny Dedman, who runs Eden Beauty with her business partner Hayley McCarthy, said they worked late nights and at the weekend to see rearranged clients but still lost business.
“We’re not on the high street so we don’t have walk-bys. Friday, like a lot of businesses, is our busiest day of the week. Why couldn’t they plan the work for a weekend or evening?
“Not everyone could make re-scheduled appointments so we lost the trade. It’s really irritating and frustrating. When you are a small business every penny matters.”
A spokesman for UK Power Networks said: “UK Power Networks would like to apologise after a planned power cut in the Capshill Bridge area was postponed.
“We had planned to switch the power off for safety reasons, to undertake routine maintenance at an electricity substation in the area as well as on a previous occasion, and notified customers accordingly.
“However, one of the sites involved is a sewage pumping station and the owner unfortunately has twice been unable to organise an alternative power supply to run the sewage services.
“We decided to postpone the maintenance work rather than our customers be left without sewage services too.
“We are continuing to work with the sewage company to arrange another suitable time and date for our maintenance to take place without affecting local sewage services.
“If customers have any queries they should call us on 0800 7838838.”