‘TUMBLEWEED’ is the word and image business owners used to describe how deserted Bantry was last Thursday after ESB Networks shut down the power supply between the peak operating hours of 9am and 5pm.
‘Bantry was completely dead,’ according to Hannah Dare, who highlighted the issue in last week’s Southern Star.
She said two of the large retail outlets in the town were able to operate because they had generators, but almost everyone else was at the mercy of the utility company.
She complained that the decision to turn off the power on Thursday – which is arguably the busiest day of the week – was also ‘very disruptive and confusing for visitors to the town.
‘There was nowhere really to eat, no pubs open, and nothing for them to do,’ she added. She was also of the opinion that the entire situation was ‘very poorly managed’ and she called on ESB Networks to ‘find better ways of communicating with us.’
She claimed there are better, faster, ways of communicating with customers than sending letters through the post six days before the power is to be cut off.
‘This outage affected an estimated 1,500 customers in Bantry,’ said Hannah, ‘and it’s clear to me that someone in ESB Networks really didn’t think about the effect of their actions.
‘They did not choose the best day – a Sunday would have been better.’
Like other business people in Bantry, she said, her takings were down for the day. ‘We did manage to use the time to complete a shelving project,’ she added, ‘but we had to reschedule our staff, and some came in at 7am before the power went off.’
County mayor Cllr Danny Collins (Ind) said his bar business was closed until 5pm and the town was ‘very quiet’.
‘If a job like this needs to be done again,’ he insisted, ‘it should be done on a Sunday, when a lot of businesses are closed, because it would be less harmful to the town.’
Meanwhile, the chairperson of Bantry Business Association, Danielle Delaney, described the impact the power outage had on the entire town as ‘ridiculous.’
‘If they are going to shut down for a whole day,’ she said, ‘they should give us more than six days’ notice. I understand the work to repair a fault was necessary, but we need time to organise ourselves and our staff.’
Ms Delaney confirmed that the shutdown resulted in ‘a huge loss to businesses at a time when people can’t afford to be losing revenue, and need to pay their ESB bills.’
