A Pewsey mini-market lost hundreds of pounds in stock when a power cut ruined food chillers.

Businesses in North Street including the village bakery lost all their power several times on Monday and Wednesday last week.

When it was restored, said Andrew Connolly who owns the Spar shop, the compressors that run his fridges had components burned out.

Mr Connolly, whose daughter Susan manages the shop, said: “We had to throw away food worth about £1,800 and it cost about £1,200 to get the four chiller units repaired.”

He said he would not claim on insurance because of the high excess but will claim off suppliers Scottish and Southern Electricity.

As well as the businesses in North Street homes in the High Street and Milton Road areas were without power until the electricity board installed generators.

And while the Spar shop and other business were without electricity on three successive days the village’s Co-op store was not affected.

Mr Connolly, who owns three other shops in Ludgershall and Tidworth, said the electricity first went off mid-morning on Monday.

“It didn’t come back on until about four o’clock,” he said. It went off again several times on Wednesday.

On Thursday the Spar shop manager and staff realised that their four food chillers were not working.

When Mr Connolly called the electricity board they said that all three phases of his commercial supply had been restored but his engineers found that one phase was still missing which had resulted in the compressors over-working and causing components to burn out.

“We suffered loss of trade on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday on top of the food we had to throw away and the cost of repairing the chillers,” Mr Connolly said.

Richard Marshall, who runs the family’s bakery business in North Street, said they lost all their rolls that were in a proving oven. He estimated that the power cuts cost about £300.

A spokeswoman for Scottish and Southern Electricity said the power loss was the result of a third-party damaging an underground high voltage cable.

She said teams of engineers were sent to repair the fault as soon as it was reported and there were further reports of problems that the engineers had to deal with. Mobile generators were brought in until the cable was repaired.

“We apologise to the community for their patience while the power was off and until the engineers restored the supply,” she said.