A HAIRDRESSER is fuming after a power cut in York city centre lost him customers and meant that two women had to leave his shop with wet hair.

Adrian Houghton, business manager of Max Headroom in Feasegate, is to claim for loss of earnings after receiving what he calls "pretty shoddy" treatment from electricity supplier NEDL.

The power cut hit about a dozen businesses in Davygate, Feasegate and Coney Street on Wednesday afternoon, knocking out lights, computers, telephone lines, electrical equipment and air conditioning on a scorching afternoon.

The power cut lasted about an hour and a half. While some shops struggled on, using written records of transactions, others had to close their doors and turn customers away.

One such was Max Headroom.

"We turned four people away, and we watched others turns away from the door after seeing we had no power," said Adrian.

"We had to send out two ladies with wet hair because we had absolutely no means of drying them.

"But what made it worse was getting no service from the NEDL people. There was a long rigmarole with automated telephone answering; I couldn't once speak to a human being to report the power cut.

"Even getting them in the first place was a nightmare. Directory Inquiries told me they didn't have a listing for them."

Adrian says that when he eventually got through to an operator at NEDL, his call was treated "flippantly".

"They said they'd received 'a few calls' and that they had three whole hours to respond to a call-out," he added.

"I couldn't believe it. When I asked about claiming for loss of earnings and filing a complaint, they gave me another long rigmarole with an air that said 'you can do that if you really feel you have to'."

Danielle Brown, manager of Hobbs Classic Ladieswear in Davygate, said her staff had "sweltered" without air conditioning, although they had managed to use written records in order to keep going.

Val Doughty, sales assistant at Athena in Feasegate, said that the firm's head office, located above the shop, had lost the use of its main computer during the blackout.

A spokeswoman for NEDL said all power was restored to the affected areas by 1.12pm. She apologised to affected customers, saying it was caused by an underground cable fault, which engineers were still investigating.

Updated: 08:55 Thursday, July 05, 2001