Fourteen power cuts in six months for town's shops

Emma's Boutique has had to shut over a number of days in the past few months due to a lack of power

The owner of a Norfolk clothes boutique said recurrent power cuts had cost her thousands of pounds in lost trade and staff wages.

Emma Dennis runs Emma's Boutique in Dereham - one of several businesses that have been plagued by power cuts.

The interruptions started in May, and despite complaints from Ms Dennis they have kept on happening - with 14 counted in six months.

UK Power Networks apologised and said it wanted to "remind all customers who rely on power for commercial reasons, to arrange backup supplies for occasions like this".

Ms Dennis said: "Back in May we started experiencing outages and we could obviously have customers in just because we had a bit of daylight, whereas now the winter months are in and it's dark. So it's too unsafe to open your doors.

"We're on our 14th power cut now, which means we've lost roughly about 14 days' worth of trading, which isn't good, and paying members of staff when you're not having anything come in is not exactly an easy thing to do."

Emma Dennis said she felt UK Power Networks had taken far too long to sort the problem out

UK Power Networks would not give details about why power in the NR19 postcode area kept going out.

It said the most recent outage affected three addresses - something disputed by Ms Dennis, who said she was told 13 properties had been affected.

Carl Adcock, who runs The Shoe Doctor on Nelson Place, has also faced power problems.

"I'm lucky compared to some others that I have lights and use of some other bits," he said.

"My shoe repair and key cutting trade has been affected.

"I have still been able to work in some capacity, it's just awkward having to move the machines".

'Slap in the face'

In a statement, the energy company said: "UK Power Networks has a 99% reliability rate when it comes to keeping the lights on for our customers.

"There will be occasions, for a range of reasons beyond our control, that power cuts do occur, and we are proactively monitoring the local network in Dereham to pinpoint the problem.

"Any customer who feels they are eligible for compensation, we urge them to contact us."

Ms Dennis called her offer of £95 compensation "a bit of a slap in the face".