A SCHEDULED power outage has provoked the ire of a Chippenham managing director, who fears it will have a negative impact on local businesses.

Steve Woods, MD of Aqualeaks at Forest Gate, has complained to Southern and Scottish Electricity Networks (SSEN) about plans to interrupt the electricity supply between 8.30am and 5pm on Tuesday, March 12.

He has also written to local MPs Michelle Donelan and James Gray about the issue, which will affect around 20 businesses at Forest Gate, between Derry Hill and Chippenham.

“This is the third major interruption in less than 12 months,” he said in the letter. “This seems particularly excessive and businesses located here are significantly impacted financially and operationally as a result each time. While the businesses at Forest Gate are of varied size and nature, we all contribute to the local economy, employ a number of local people and will have large numbers of clients and customers, some of which are vulnerable people, who will also be affected.”

Mr Woods has proposed that the work is rescheduled to a less disruptive time, such as a weekend.

“Any additional costs incurred by you as a result of this action will be dwarfed by the total costs to the affected businesses here and will go some way to addressing the severe inconvenience we have experienced as a result of these interruptions,” he added.

But a spokesman for SSEN said the businesses had been sent letters on February 5, so they had more than a month to prepare for the outage, which was part of the work to upgrade and enhance the supply system in the locality.

She said: “The work is absolutely necessary. The work is being done to boost resilience of the network.”

The timing decisions take a range of factors into account: “We choose the least worst option, to minimise the impact on all our customers.”