Power cut chaos for pub landlord (From Stroud News and Journal)

Power cut chaos for pub landlord

TOWNS and villages across the Five Valleys were plunged into darkness after a power cut on Monday.

Nailsworth, Amberley, Woodchester and Selsley were worst affected by the blackout, which affected 4,437 households. At the time of going to press, 96 were still without electricity.

Nick Beardsley, landlord of The Old Fleece in Rooksmoor, The Britannia in Nailsworth and Tippets, near Nailsworth, had to evacuate customers from two of his pubs.

"It was disastrous for us and extremely inconvenient for the customers," he said. "By dinner time the Old Fleece was just filling up and we had birthday parties and corporate functions going on.

"We tried to battle on by offering them salads but it was just too cold for people to want that kind of thing. At the Fleece, the ovens were just full of food people had ordered. The only saving grace was that we managed to send them on to another one of our pubs. It was an extremely busy night for the Britannia."

Kathy Doyle, spokesman for Central Networks, the company responsible for Stroud's electricity supply, said engineers were still investigating the cause of the problem.

"We managed to get most of our customers back on in the early hours of Tuesday morning. We have had problems with a high voltage line, which is why it hasn't been fixed sooner.

"We would really like to apologise to all our customers for the inconvenience, but we have a team out there already doing all they can do get everyone back on."