Shops left in the dark over blackouts

POWER cuts have cost Scunthorpe town centre traders thousands of pounds in lost business.

Shops and salons in the Mary Street and Oswald Road area of the town centre have experienced frequent power cuts since the new year.

Businesses have reported losing stock, being forced to close early, and turning away customers as power failures paralyse their efforts to move on from the recession.

Clair Armstrong, manager of Beauty and Beyond in Oswald Road, feels her business may not survive if the blackouts continue.

She said: "Our businesses are really suffering, conditions are tough enough at the moment but if things continue like this I'm not sure we'll be able to survive.

"We've probably lost around £2,000 since the turn of the year, we can't use our equipment so we keep having to cancel bookings over and over again.

"In the long-term those customers may not return because we've had to send them elsewhere. Also with our telephones not working customers must think we're ignoring them.

"It could take a long, long time to properly recover from this."

Naomi McLaren, manager of The Retreat in Mary Street, has been forced to send customers to other salons halfway through beauty treatments.

She said: "Since the new year our electricity has been off for hours at a time around once or twice a week.

"We've lost thousands and will continue to lose money until the problem has been fixed, but every time we ring the electricity company we just get fobbed off."

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