A BLACKOUT in Haslemere in the early hours of last Friday has left a restaurant owner angry at the slow response to her call for help. Electricity supplies were cut to the Poachers' Pocket restaurant, and Crofts Veterinary Surgery in Petworth Road, along with Lloyds Bank, Woolworth's and some homes when a sub- station blow-out caused a power shutdown at about 1am. Power was restored by midday, but restaurateur Louisa Hyde says Scottish and Southern Electricity did not call out their engineer until 5am. She had to cancel restaurant bookings and discard perishable food and in total thinks her losses are £2,000. She will be fighting for compensation, even though the company only promises £100 because the power was out less than 18 hours. A local engineer has told her the business is now connected to a temporary sub-station, until an underground cable can be repaired, but she has had no word from the power company when the switch back is due. She is worried this could lead to further losses if it happens during business hours. Mrs Hyde said: "I was aware of the sound of complete silence just before 2am. Having thought it was only a power blip I did not immediately do anything. After an hour I realised that properties either side of me had lighting. At 3am I telephoned the electricity company. At 5am I was telephoned to say an engineer was on his way. When he arrived at 6am, he found the fault was not going to be easy to locate. He also told me he had only been contacted at 5am. "I spoke to their 'team leader' and voiced by complaint that my call had not even been put into action for three hours, when I had specifically said I was a commercial business with perishable food." Mrs Hyde continued: "I understand faults happen but what I cannot agree with is the lack of response to my first call. My concern was the fridges and freezers, with a busy weekend ahead of us we had lots of stock." During one of her calls to the company, later that day, Mrs Hyde was informed other reports had been made from 8.30am, and as the fault was not just with her property, locating the problem would be difficult. "The team leader assured me we would be reconnected at some point in the day but not when," said Mrs Hyde. Mrs Hyde then had to call customers and cancel lunchtime tables, including a group booking for a retirement lunch. A hired generator arrived at 11am, but by then it was too late. She said: "By the time we had connected all the fridges and freezers the power had been down for over nine hours. We then checked our stock. The freezers were all fine but items in the service fridge had gone beyond the legal temperature differential. Which meant we had to start dumping items prepared for the day. Even if power was now restored we had a day's worth of work to do in four hours." At just before midday, power was restored but not necessarily guaranteed to stay. The decision was made to closed for the evening service as well. "I managed to contact all but one table of seven with plenty of time for people to hopefully make other arrangements. I had held some space for people to come on Saturday instead. I had now been up since 2am with only half an hour sleep from the previous night!" She added: "I know that Crofts vets were also affected, but I would be interested in hearing from others so I can coordinate an appeal. The standard letter says they will not accept liability if power is restored within 18 hours and stock should be fine for 12. They will only pay £100 for commercial loss. So I think I will have a fight on my hands!" At Crofts Veterinary Surgery, vet Ann Sealey, said she had to cancel one operation and a blood test because a blood machine used in analysing samples was out of action. But she said she was impressed that the power was restored quite quickly. She said:"I noticed the power must have gone off at 1am because our electric clock had stopped at that time. I got up at 6am and phoned them straight away but was told the fault had already been reported." Scottish and Southern Electricity told The Herald the first call came at 3.30am, but they do not send engineers out during the night to a single property. When a second caller reported a fault at 5.30am an engineer was dispatched. A blown fuse at a sub- station was located, but underground cables and safety checks had to be carried out to eliminate any further faults. The company say four properties in Petworth Road and two in High Street were affected.
