Power cut cost business 'thousands of pounds'

A business in a tourist hotspot says it lost thousands of pounds after a power cut on one of the busiest days of the year.

The village of Bamburgh in Northumberland was without electricity for several hours on Easter Saturday.

It meant many shops and restaurants had to close because ovens, fridges and card machines were not working.

Northern Powergrid apologised for the disruption and said all customers had their power restored by the end of the day.

Richard Sim, owner of the Potted Lobster restaurant, said: "We probably lost about £4,000 in one day.

"I had 100 people booked in and the phone lines were down.

"Mobile reception is terrible in Bamburgh so we couldn't get hold of customers to tell them not to come."

"As soon as the electric goes off, the gas goes off, the chefs can't see what they're doing so there's no way we could cook anything," he added.

According to the regulator Ofgem, if energy users are cut off for 12 hours or more, they can claim £90 as a domestic customer or £175 as a non-domestic customer.

Customers can get a further £40 for each additional 12 hours of being off supply, up to a total of £300.

But Mr Sim described this as "an insult".

"I won't even bother to claim it, we lost thousands of pounds, we lost fresh produce, and I had 10 members of staff standing around who still need paying."

A spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said: “On Saturday 30 March we were alerted to a low-hanging overhead power line which required a safety interruption, affecting 644 customers."

They said power was restored to 455 customers within three hours, with the rest getting their power back by 22:33 GMT.

“We thank our customers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience caused," they added.

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