WARBURTON traders have lost thousands of dollars during their major tourism period after twice shutting up shop for planned temporary power outages that never occurred.
After each notification the power never went off and the works were rescheduled. Traders now have to face a third day where they don’t know whether to tell people they’re closed or risk staying open.
But power company SP AusNet apologised, saying the postponements were beyond its control due to emergency works.
Gembrook MP Brad Battin said the problem wasn’t just with the postponements but also the method of communicating with the small businesses, which were already struggling to bring in tourists.
About 70 properties were informed of the power outage, including a select group of traders west of variety store the Chook Shed and including Warburton Wellbeing on the south side of the main street, to happen between 8.30am and 3pm on designated days.
The first notification was for Tuesday 8 January, a hot day during the school holidays that saw many tourists come into town, while the rescheduled notification was for last Friday (1 February).
Donna Fowler from Warburton Wellbeing couldn’t take bookings on those days and Warburton Pantry’s Leila Smith moved all of the cheeses and meats to her personal fridge at home so she didn’t lose produce.
Ms Fowler said Friday was usually her busiest day.
“I guess I had the worst day because I didn’t even open,” she said.
Frances McBride from the Chook Shed said they had been doing a massive trade during the holidays with inflatables for children swimming in the river.
“It was crazy, it was the middle of the school holidays and we had to close – then there was no communication, they just cancelled the works,” she said.
“We’ve got some pretty dejected traders as it is.”
She said it was a select group of traders being challenged with the works.
“Is it incomprehensible to ask them to bring in generators for us?
“They need to realise they’ve had a significant effect on small businesses up here.”
Ms McBride said Tuesday 8 January was her worst day’s trade in more than two and a half years.
“It’s two days’ loss of trade – our overheads are still staying the same – especially with full-time staff – but we’re being deprived of our income,” she said.
Gainsborough Video owner Jo Sibbison said it was “really messing with us”.
Warburton Pantry owner Leila Smith said the first time she was notified she shut down the business and moved all the perishable meats and cheeses to her home.
“On Friday I decided to open and wait for the power to go out but it never went off and then Donna told me at 11am they cancelled it again,” she said.
The traders all said the communications from SP AusNet weren’t good enough, and different people were giving them different information and excuses.
Gembrook MP Brad Battin said the businesses in Warburton struggled enough during the fire danger season to then have to deal with this extra problem.
“Small business is small but it’s the largest employer in the region,” he said.
“They’ve been hit hard twice and now there will be a third time.”
He said he would be following up the circumstances with the Energy Minister.
An SP AusNet spokesman apologised for the inconvenience to its customers in Warburton but said the postponements were beyond their control.
He said crews that were allocated to the outage planned for Friday 1 February had to be redeployed overnight on 31 January due to severe storms that caused extensive damage to dozens of power lines in the area where about 4000 customers had their electricity cut off.
“Unfortunately, a similar emergency occurred the day before the previous planned outage on January 8, resulting in the planned outage crews again redeployed overnight on emergency duties,” he said.
He said SP AusNet was obligated to prioritise emergency situations ahead of planned outages but endeavoured to notify customers as early as possible about changes to the planned outage schedule.
A rescheduled date for the planned works, which are important safety maintenance works, is yet to be decided.
