LOCAL residents and businesses have slammed a group of bungling workmen for ruining their idyllic town by making it like lockdown all over again.
The beautiful town of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, has been left hamstrung after workers burst a gas main while resurfacing one of the town’s main streets.
Gift and stationery store owner Charlotte Miles says the closure has made the town ‘feel like it did during lockdown’[/caption]
Businesses and residents in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, have slammed bungling workers for hitting a gas pipe[/caption]
The accident has led to the long-term closure of one of the main streets in the town[/caption]
Business owners say footfall and sales have plummeted by a staggering 80 per cent since the leak, which forced the closure of the essential road running through the picturesque Cotswolds town.
The town prides itself on its abundance of small, independent shops but many say the closure is threatening to push them out of business.
Gift and stationery store owner Charlotte Miles, 41, said: “The town feels like it did during lockdown.
“The streets and car parks are empty and hardly anyone’s coming in.
“There’s no noise, no people, and it’s really starting to affect us now.”
Charlotte, who has run Pulp in the town centre for the past six years, added: “My sales and footfall are down by around 80 per cent.”
Outside her shop, in the town’s George Street, workmen have had to dig a two metre-deep trench almost the width of the road to access and repair the giant gas pipe.
It was damaged on April 14 when a team carrying out road resurfacing work on the street struck it with their machinery by mistake, causing a massive leak.
Highways officials from Gloucestershire County Council immediately closed the road, and residents living in nearby homes were evacuated by cops.
Police officers then spent the evening knocking on doors telling people they had to leave their homes immediately.
Two weeks on, although residents have been allowed to return to their homes, businesses are struggling to survive as the impact of the road closure hits the town.
One of the workmen repairing the 50 metre stretch of gas pipe said he had “huge sympathy” with the local businesses, but added the task could take at least another week to complete.
For many businesses in the town, that could spell disaster.
“My turnover is down so much at the moment that I’m not sure my business can survive for another week,” said Charlotte.
“I’ve been told by the utility company, Wales and West, that I won’t even be eligible for compensation unless my business is affected for 28 consecutive days, so my guess is the work will be completed on day 27.
“And my insurer has told me they don’t cover gas-related incidents, so to put it bluntly, I’m screwed, and all because of incompetence by the council’s road resurfacing team.
“How could they not know there was a big fat gas mains runny the length of the road? Don’t they check these things first?”
Dress shop owner Selina Murray says her revenues dropped by 82 per cent on Easter Saturday as a result of the roadworks[/caption]
Shops have found themselves right at the front of the repairs[/caption]
Local Claire Barrell hopes to encourage other residents to keep supporting businesses on the disrupted street[/caption]
Across the road, Selina Murray, 42, shares Charlotte’s concerns.
She has run her women’s clothing store, Daisy Jane, with her sister since her mother, who set it up 11 years ago, died in June last year.
She said: “Losing Mum was awful, but we wanted to keep her beautiful shop going so me and my sister took over almost a year ago.
“Just as we were starting to get to grips with it, this road closure happens right outside our front door over the Easter holidays, which would normally have been the busiest time of the year.
“It has been such a tough couple of weeks for us. On a typical Easter Saturday we’d have expected to be taking at least £1,000, but because of the roadworks, we only managed £181.
“It’s really affecting us now. I’m having to phone round our suppliers every day to try and buy more time to pay people for the stock we’ve ordered.
“It’s horrific at the moment. The place is like a ghost town, just like during the pandemic.
“It’s not just us that are suffering – it’s everyone in the town.”
Customer Claire Barrell, 44, was determined to support her under-pressure local businesses as she shopped with her two children in the town.
Claire, who works as a business advisor in the public sector, said: “It is really tough for these stores at present and I hope the good people of Nailsworth join me in making the extra effort required to shrug off the roadworks fiasco and help our fantastic local, independent shops survive this crisis.
“These businesses are what makes Nailsworth so special. The streets aren’t full of chain stores, like soy many other towns, but we all need to get behind them now and make sure they get through this.
“These shops aren’t just retailers, they’re an important part of our wonderful community. I love being able to wander down the hill and look around these unique shops with my children.”
The roadworks have no set end date[/caption]
Butcher Nigel Birkett said the new conditions were ‘every bit as bad’ as the Covid-19 lockdown[/caption]
Maintenance vehicles on the blocked-off street[/caption]
Nearby, butcher Nigel Burkett, 56, who has been manager at Leonard Walker Family Butchers for more than 30 years, said: “I thought lockdown was tough and this is every bit as bad.
“We’re lucky that we can put meat in the freezer if it doesn’t sell immediately, but this road closure is definitely affecting our sales day to day.
“It’s a mess out there. I just hope they fix it quick and we can all get back to normal.
“It’s going to cost a fortune, though, isn’t it, and I’d like to know who’s going to be footing the bill? All of us, I expect.”
Another local business, men’s clothing store James Lear of Arundel, has also seen a huge downturn in footfall and sales since the gas pipe was ruptured.
‘LIKE A GHOST TOWN’
Owner Polly Lawrence, who is in her mid-thirties, said: “It has been a disaster for the town, every bit as bad as lockdown.
“The place has been like a ghost town.
“People are just not coming here at the moment because they have the perception that the road that’s closed is the only way to get here.
“It’s frightened people off. They think they won’t be able to get in or out of the town and that if they do make the journey along other roads, it will be gridlock.
“There are other roads in and out and if the local council would only put signs up to direct people to the parking spaces, we’d be better able to get through this.
“As it is, everyone likes to use the Morrisons car park but because it’s in the part of town where the road is closed, people think there’ll be nowhere to park once they get here.
“It’s all had a crushing effect on our businesses. Our sales and footfall are down any least 50 per cent and this would normally be a very busy time of year for us. It is so disappointing.
“At first they told us the gas pipe would be fixed at the beginning of May, now they’re telling us mid-May, but who knows?
“It could go on even longer and that is going to put some businesses here in trouble.”
Our high street’s had FIFTEEN shops close in just months – there’s nothing to do here anymore
LOCALS in a seaside town have told how fifteen shops have closed on their high street in the space of a few months.
Some complained there was “nothing to do any more” following the “sad” decline.
Worthing saw a surge in closures between 2023 and 2024, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – which also revealed that 625 shops had closed in the wider county of Sussex.
This constitutes a 10 per cent drop in retailers in a blow to both shoppers and local business.
One shopper, Sally Richards, told the BBC: “It’s sad that there is hardly any big departmental stores now.”
Another, Claire Szaja, said the town was “not doing as well as it used to”.
“I have seen businesses cutting hours and even closing down in the last few months which is sad,” she added.
Meanwhile, local businesswoman Lorette Sprackling said her shop, Bijou Boutique, had seen “a bad winter”, with low footfall.
She added: “It’s not a good sign to have that many shops empty. It’s quite upsetting knowing there’s that many shops to let.”
The news follows a string of closures across the UK – as businesses face economic pressures and the rise of online shopping.
Andrew Wilding, Wales & West Utilities operations manager for Stroud, said: “In order to keep the local community, road users and our colleagues safe, we will keep the council’s road closure along George Street in place while we work.
“This is a complex job, and the nature of the damage has meant we will need to bring in additional teams to support our work.
“(On April 14) we received reports that a third-party contractor working in the George Street area of Nailsworth had damaged a gas pipe on our network during late-night road resurfacing work.
“We immediately sent our team to investigate and discovered a gas leak as a result of the damage.
“Our engineers worked as safely and as quickly as possible to isolate and stop the leak, making it safe. We are working to make a full repair on it.
“In agreement with Gloucestershire County Council, and in order to keep the local community, road users and our colleagues safe, we will keep the Council’s road closure along George Street in place while we work.
“This is a complex job, and we do not yet know how long our work will take. We would like to thank everyone for their patience while we work to make this essential repair.”
Streets appear to be emptier now in Nailsworth[/caption]
The blocked-off street[/caption]
The works are being undertaken to ‘keep the local community safe’[/caption]
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