ANOTHER power cut hit a Malvern business park last Friday. However, companies affected will still not receive compensation.

Several firms on the Enigma Business Park suffered a sudden loss of power at 8.20am, following cuts the previous Tuesday and Thursday.

Senior engineers from power suppliers Aquila arrived at the scene to meet with business owners and asked all the factories affected to turn off their electricity.

They then tested connections to each building and decided there was a fault in the underground cable.

The road near the substation was dug up and a section of cable was replaced. Power was eventually restored at around 7.30pm, almost 12 hours later.

Neale Plastics had to send employees home on Friday and was estimated to have lost thousands of pounds of trade in the week the cuts took place.

"Effectively we lost all our production from midday Tuesday for the rest of the week," said owner Greville Neale.

Synthotec, a company that makes parts for the motor industry, was also affected by the cuts.

Manufacturing engineer Steve Morris said: "We've lost thousands of pounds worth of trade."

Mr Morris said he believed there would be more cuts in the future. He said: "The cable's unsatisfactory. It's not big enough and the firms round here are using too much power for a cable of that size."

Liz Mckinnon, office manager of Contractors Spellar Metcalfe, said she was not happy with the repairs.

"We had problems a couple of years ago and they need to do something more long term about it," she said.

The firms affected by the cuts are sending a group e-mail to Aquila to demand that something be done.

However, Aquila spokesperson Beverley Harrington said that to qualify for compensation firms had to experience power loss four times a year, for more than three hours each time.

Ms Harrington said the problem was caused by one factory on the estate drawing too much power.

"We have spoken to the owner and put him in touch with one of our design engineers to discuss redesign work," she said.

n The electricity went off again on Wednesday (August 27), from 2.20pm to just before 4pm.

Steve Morris at Synthotec said: "We had just got everything up and running again and were looking forward to a full week of production but here we go again."