By Steph Johnson, Chris Story and Anna Burdett

Last updated 13:49, Thursday, 28 August 2008

A BUSINESSMAN fears he could be forced to bin £10,000-worth of stock if power is not restored to a sprawling Carlisle industrial estate today.

Counting the cost: Austen Davies during the power cut which ruined fish and game stocks

Companies at Kingmoor Park have been forced to operate without electricity since arriving for work yesterday and discovering a problem with the main cable feeding power to the site.

And while they say estate bosses have done all they can to help them cope with the difficult conditions, at least one firm fears it could be forced to write-off major losses.

Management are bringing in a massive generator capable of powering a small town and hoped to have power restored to all tenants still without electricity later this morning. But Austen Davies, owner of Fosters Fish and Game and Border County Food, fears much of his stock will have gone off. He stores pheasants, fish and pork at his Kingmoor base.

When he arrived at work today, a room which is usually kept at a temperature of minus-two degrees had a temperature measuring 10 degrees. Ice in which his produce was packed last night had melted.

Mr Davies said: “The power went out on Tuesday night and we came in yesterday morning to darkness.

“Electricity is vital to us – especially in the summer because we work with a lot of chilled and frozen produce.

“We were unable to do anything yesterday because the machines weren’t working. We have a busy weekend coming up and will have to cancel going to an event in Kendal because we won’t have enough stock.

“The problem is enormous. We won’t know the extent of the damage until the power’s back on. I have £10,000-worth of perishables in these fridges and freezers.”

Other workers managed to continue with their businesses despite the problems, but many had to work in darkness.

Some firms had their own generators which kicked-in when the power loss happened.

Kingmoor Park – owned by property magnate Brian Scowcroft – has more than 100 tenants occupying about 1.5 million sq ft of new and refurbished buildings on the former RAF 14MU site, north of Carlisle.

Kingmoor Park executives say the problem stems from a fault with the main cable supplying electricity to a sub-station on the site, which damaged an internal power transformer.

Electricity was restored to most buildings on the site by 10.30pm yesterday.

A spokeswoman said: “We have a contingency plan in place where we work with United Utilities to address this issue as soon as possible. The tenants on site have been brilliant. Everyone has mucked in and done their best.”

Power supply firm United Utilities said their engineers had found no problems with the cables running to the site that they are responsible for and that it would appear the problem was with the estate’s private network.