The owner of a Norfolk clothing store said recurring power cuts have cost her thousands of pounds in lost business and staff wages.

Emma Dennis runs Emma’s Boutique in Dereham, one of several businesses plagued by power cuts.

The disruptions began in May and, despite Ms Dennis’s complaints, they continued – with 14 counts in six months.

UK Power Networks apologized and said it wanted to “remind all customers who rely on electricity for business reasons to have backup supplies ready for occasions like this”.

Ms Dennis said: “In May we started experiencing outages and obviously we could accommodate customers just because we had some daylight, whereas now the winter months have arrived and it’s dark. It is therefore too dangerous to open your doors.

“We’re on our 14th power outage, which means we’ve lost about 14 days of trading, which isn’t good, and paying staff members when nothing happens isn’t exactly good thing. easy thing to do.

UK Power Networks did not provide details on why electricity in the NR19 postcode area continued to be cut off.

He said the most recent outage affected three addresses – something disputed by Ms Dennis, who said she was told 13 properties had been affected.

Carl Adcock, who runs The Shoe Doctor in Nelson Place, has also been dealing with electricity problems.

“I’m lucky compared to others to have lights and use other items,” he said.

“My job of shoemaking and key cutting has been affected.

“I was still able to work to a certain extent, it’s just inconvenient to have to move the machines.”

In a statement, the energy company said: “UK Power Networks has a 99% reliability rate when it comes to keeping the lights on for our customers.

“There will be occasions, for various reasons beyond our control, for power outages, and we are proactively monitoring Dereham’s local network to identify the problem.

“Any customer who believes they are entitled to compensation, we encourage them to contact us.”

Ms Dennis called in her £95 offer compensation “a bit of a slap in the face.”