Local business owners in Evandale are fearing major financial losses after TasNetworks announced plans to cut power to the town for four Mondays in March and April.
Richard Morgan, who owns Evandale Providore with his brother, said the outages from 8am to 4:30pm will cost their business between $20,000 and $30,000.
The supermarket also operates the local Australia Post outlet.
“We can’t trade because we’ve got no power,” Morgan told Pulse.
“You won’t be able to go and see a doctor, you won’t be able to go to the pharmacy.”
The power cuts are scheduled to begin next Monday and continue for four weeks, excluding Easter Monday, to replace power poles throughout the town of 1,265 residents.
Morgan claimed businesses only received notification letters in the past week, with nobody from the energy company consulting with them them directly.
“I spoke to all the other business people, and no one had actually been contacted,” he said.
TasNetworks told Morgan they only needed to provide four weeks’ notice with no compensation or assistance with generators.
Morgan said getting a generator would cost more than $10,000 plus electrician fees.
He believes TasNetworks chose Mondays because local hotels are closed that day, but said no day would suit businesses.
“What they’ve done is they’ve looked at it on the two websites for the two hotels, and realised that the hotels don’t open on the Mondays,” he said.
“But just the lack of consultation and lack of coming to help us, you know, it really wouldn’t meet the pub test.”
The outages will affect the entire town’s power supply, potentially spoiling refrigerated goods and forcing residents to collect mail and parcels elsewhere.
“I don’t know of any other town that’s lost their power every Monday for four Mondays,” he said.
“One Monday we could live with, but four?” he said.
A TasNetworks spokesperson said maintenance and upgrades are crucial for keeping Tasmanians’ power supply as reliable as possible.
“A planned outage, for upgrades and maintenance, is always better than an unplanned outage,” they told Pulse.
“We’re determined to invest strongly in regional reliability – including this upgrade for the people of Evandale and surrounds.
“We appreciate Tasmanians’ overwhelming support for local upgrades and crucial maintenance.”
