THREE blackouts in the last five days have left traders struggling to keep their customers.

Shoppers faced closed shutters and darkened shops after the power was switched off in High Street, Wealdstone, last Saturday and on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Surekha Rughani, manager of Visioncare, estimated the loss to her shop at between £800 and £1,000 after it was forced to close on two of the three days.

She said: "We had to cancel all our patients while the power was off on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"It disrupted all our business and we weren't getting any answers from the people we spoke to at the electricity company."

Vera Tipping, a receptionist for the opticians, has had to deal with the fallout from the power cuts.

She said: "It went off at the busiest time. Patient that had to be rescheduled have been ringing in and they're a bit apprehensive about coming because they don't know whether it will happen again.

"Some of them come from quite far away."

Milan Shah, manager of Pineapple Boutique, and vice chairman of Wealdstone Traders' Association, said: "A lot of shops can't open the shutters without electricity so they had to do it manually, which takes about 20 minutes, and the hairdressers can't use their equipment.

"It stops everything. It's not good for the area because people get upset and then they won't come back."

Helen Galley, a spokesman for EDF energy, apologised for the inconvenience caused and said the electricity supply failed for 266 customers at midday on Tuesday but was running again by just after 1pm.

She said the same people were hit by the second blackout at 9.30am on Wednesday but the power was restored to 222 within 40 minutes.

The remaining 44 were without electricity until just before 1pm.

She said: "Underground cable faults can occur for a number of reasons and it's not always possible to say what has caused them.

"As much as we invest in our network, £400million this year, we cannot eliminate power cuts all together."