A POWER CUT affected many businesses at the weekend causing them to lose a substantial amount of trade.
The power cut occurred in Fordingbridge and lasted approximately eight hours on Sunday, October 15.
The George Inn, on Bridge Street, is owned by Caroline and James Roylance.
The staff experienced a difficult day with the power cut affecting their Sunday lunch service. They were on the second fully booked sitting when the electricity went off.
Caroline Roylance said: "We lost power at 2pm and had to turn away 80 covers. Most of our customers were incredibly understanding. Only one table appeared to be perplexed as to why there was a power cut that we couldn’t do anything about.
"We sent them on their way with the recommendation to go to the Bat and Ball at Breamore as we often recommend them when we are fully booked."
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The power came back on just before 11pm but went off a few times overnight and it was still off at 10am on Monday, October 16.
Caroline said: "We lost thousands of pounds of sales and wasted more food than I care to think about. We have enquired to SSEC about compensation for our sales loss yesterday and have been informed that we can only make a claim if we had lost power for more than 12 consecutive hours.
"Not being entitled to compensation is absolutely devastating at this time with the cost of living in crisis hitting hard our expenses rising exponentially and people watching their pennies every single day of takings really count to us. Margins are extremely thin."
She added: "We have the 'Keep Calm, It's Only a Power Cut' sign because we as a couple have made the news, most notably New Years Eve 2017 when we Kept Calm and Carried on to serve a 7 course taster menu to 60 people after having a power cut for the whole day."
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Some businesses were still affected the following day.
Information officer for the town council, Kathy Downie said: "We came in (on Monday) and the power was off until about 11 am so the office was closed. We were not in at the weekend so I don't know whether we were affected then."
The power cut was caused by power lines coming down near to the service station and the situation has now been resolved.
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