Firms’ anger at repeated electricity failures in Blackburn

12:51pm Wednesday 26th September 2012 in News

HEADACHE Arif Amin in the affected restaurant HEADACHE Arif Amin in the affected restaurant

BUSINESSES say they have lost thousands of pounds in custom after a series of power cuts along Whalley New Road.

And 40 residents in the Bastwell area, including Blackburn MP Jack Straw , have also been left in the dark.

Arif Amin, 42, who owns the 120-seater Kebabish Original restaurant, said: “It has happened eight or nine times in the last seven weeks. The worst period was over the August bank holiday period when I estimate we lost around £7,000 in business.

“It always seems to happen at our peak times in the evening, around 7.30pm, when the restaurant is full of customers.

“When you have customers in celebrating birthdays and special occasions and a busy takeaway service, it not only loses the business money, it damages its reputation.”

He said last week the power went off for 90 minutes at about 8pm on Tuesday.

On Friday it went off for three hours between 7pm and 10pm and on Saturday between 8pm and 10.30pm and again for 30 minutes on Sunday evening.

Mr Amin added: “When the power goes off I can’t send staff home because I don’t know how long we will be affected, so I pay them to twiddle their thumbs until it does come on.”

Mr Straw said: “A couple of weeks ago I returned home to complete darkness. While I was on the phone to Electricity North West the power came back on, but it went off again shortly after.

“I have spoken to some of the businesses affected by the power cuts and there seems to be a chronic failure in the system. I will be taking the issue up on their behalf.”

Bastwell Labour councillor Shaukat Hussain has been contacted by a number of businesses.

He said: “It’s not good enough in this economic climate. This is happening too often and not enough is being done to resolve it. The businesses are losing money and customers.”

A spokesperson for Electricity North West said: “We apologise for this re-occurring fault, which is due to excess load on the network in the area.

“Our engineers will continue to restore power as quickly as possible when outages occur as we continue to plan an effective long-term solution.”

Comments (7)

2:03pm Wed 26 Sep 12

jack daniels says...

Blackburn MP Jack Straw , has also been left in the dark.

nothing new there then..........
Blackburn MP Jack Straw , has also been left in the dark. nothing new there then.......... jack daniels

2:56pm Wed 26 Sep 12

jack denials says...

jack daniels wrote:
Blackburn MP Jack Straw , has also been left in the dark.

nothing new there then..........
Although I don't like him, you can't really blame him for being left in the dark. He did have Tinnitus, which is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound, so he has really been left in the dark, becasue he hasn't been able to hear anyone.
[quote][p][bold]jack daniels[/bold] wrote: Blackburn MP Jack Straw , has also been left in the dark. nothing new there then..........[/p][/quote]Although I don't like him, you can't really blame him for being left in the dark. He did have Tinnitus, which is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound, so he has really been left in the dark, becasue he hasn't been able to hear anyone. jack denials

4:30pm Wed 26 Sep 12

woolywords says...

jack denials wrote:
jack daniels wrote:
Blackburn MP Jack Straw , has also been left in the dark.

nothing new there then..........
Although I don't like him, you can't really blame him for being left in the dark. He did have Tinnitus, which is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound, so he has really been left in the dark, becasue he hasn't been able to hear anyone.
That could explain why he was asking for women to remove face coverings, he wanted to lip read. Thanks for 'enlightening' me..
[quote][p][bold]jack denials[/bold] wrote: [quote][p][bold]jack daniels[/bold] wrote: Blackburn MP Jack Straw , has also been left in the dark. nothing new there then..........[/p][/quote]Although I don't like him, you can't really blame him for being left in the dark. He did have Tinnitus, which is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound, so he has really been left in the dark, becasue he hasn't been able to hear anyone.[/p][/quote]That could explain why he was asking for women to remove face coverings, he wanted to lip read. Thanks for 'enlightening' me.. woolywords

5:20pm Wed 26 Sep 12

brossen99 says...

People need to get used to power cuts as that's what will regularly happen when the UK foolishly relies on wind farms etc, in Germany ( where they are further down the wind fam path ) companies are being forced to buy their own diesel generators or close down !
People need to get used to power cuts as that's what will regularly happen when the UK foolishly relies on wind farms etc, in Germany ( where they are further down the wind fam path ) companies are being forced to buy their own diesel generators or close down ! brossen99

7:05pm Wed 26 Sep 12

Info-warrior says...

Jack Straw said:“I have spoken to some of the businesses affected by the power cuts and there seems to be a chronic failure in the system. I will be taking the issue up on their behalf.”

Find out who's nicking electric in the area where this is happening and am sure the cronic failures will stop in a flash......
Jack Straw said:“I have spoken to some of the businesses affected by the power cuts and there seems to be a chronic failure in the system. I will be taking the issue up on their behalf.” Find out who's nicking electric in the area where this is happening and am sure the cronic failures will stop in a flash...... Info-warrior

5:42am Thu 27 Sep 12

renren says...

------ http://www.chic-good
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hello,This is a wholesaler's web site.

Items, fashion, and: popular personality.

Product quality,commodity price is absolutely!

Always deeply overseas friends love and support.

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------- http://www.chic-good
s.us ------------
------ http://www.chic-good s.us/ ----------- hello,This is a wholesaler's web site. Items, fashion, and: popular personality. Product quality,commodity price is absolutely! Always deeply overseas friends love and support. Please stop you progress in your choice so, need!!!!! ------- http://www.chic-good s.us ------------ renren

10:32am Thu 27 Sep 12

bow1974 says...

Not supprised theres so many outage'swith all the pot i mean wind farms round that area
Not supprised theres so many outage'swith all the pot i mean wind farms round that area bow1974

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