Retail stores lose thousands in power cuts and cross their fingers for no more

More than 505 properties were affected including stores at the Turner Rise Retail Park.

The two-hour power outage forced shops to close early on Tuesday and again Thursday.

Nine staff were working at Pizza Hut when they were told the power would not be restored until after close.

It then shut six hours early.

Manager Gary Stemmer said the power cut had a huge impact.

He said: "It's frustrating.

"People think it's just a power cut but the repercussions can be costly.

"Sales wise we've lost between £2,5000 to £3,000 so it has an impact on everything.

"We'd lost £200 on all the food we'd prepped and because of the high-risk products we have stored, anything refrigerated had to be binned."

Staff working across both days will lose between 10 and 12 hours in their wages this month, plus tips.

Mr Stemmer said the sales impact on a weekend would be two to three times worse.

He added: "Although we won't know the full impact until Monday, we've lost £500 over those two days just on food stock and 40 to 50 hours of labour."

When Iceland closed at 4pm they lost thousands of pounds in trade.

Store manager Nikki Monk stayed until 12.40am for the online systems to reboot.

The supermarket now has a generator on site in case it happens again.

She said: "Luckily we didn't lose any frozen food, just some of our chilled produce, because the units won't start to defrost until after four-and-a-half hours as long as we keep the lids shut."

However, Asda fortunately averted a crisis.

A spokesperson said: "The power went down twice briefly for less than a minute, before the back-up generators were activated to enable the store to remain open as normal."

UK Power Networks said the issues were caused by two faults on its overhead electricity network, which have now been disconnected to restore power supply.

But customers will not be able to claim money back for the inconvenience.

A spokeswoman added: "We're working with others to plan a network upgrade in the area.

"We're sorry for any business losses incurred and in common with all other UK electricity distribution companies, this is a matter for the customer’s own business insurance.

"If they decide to make a claim our customer services team can provide written confirmation of the power cut."