Morpeth businesses have been left in the dark as the town’s CBD was forced to go without electricity for a day.
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Energy provider Ausgrid cut power to Morpeth between 8.30am and 2.30pm yesterday to perform maintenance work, leaving businesses in the main street without power.
Morpeth Business Association member Trevor Richards said
Ausgrid had notified businesses of the power cut for urgent work to be carried out.
Mr Richards said the company supplied a power generator to Morpeth Public School for the day, but when the business association asked Ausgrid to supply a generator for CBD businesses, the company told them it would be too expensive.
Many Morpeth businesses close on Mondays because of a high volume of weekend trade.
But Mr Richards said some businesses, such as general stores, bakeries and butcheries, opened every day and the power cut had affected them adversely.
“It’s just one of those inconvenient things,” he said.
“The funny thing is, when I had my roof redone recently one of the requirements was that I had to cut the power. I had to hire a generator to power the entire main street.
“It was OK for me to spend $20,000 on a generator, but when the chamber asked [Ausgrid] to supply a generator they said they couldn’t because of the cost.”
An Ausgrid spokesperson said the power cut had affected about 500 customers yesterday.
He said a new connection had been installed on the single 11,000 volt power line that supplied the entire town.
This would make it quicker to restore power during future blackouts.
“We chose a Monday following consultation with local businesses in July to understand what day they preferred,” he said. “The majority of businesses told us the works would impact them least on a Monday.
“We understand that whenever these works are done, they can cause inconvenience so we give plenty of notice for customers to prepare.
“Turning the power off is a last resort, but doing it in a controlled way will help us avoid unplanned, lengthy blackouts in Morpeth in the future.”