A decision to cut the power in Beechworth and surrounds for almost eight hours on Thursday will force a childcare centre to shut for the day to ensure kids’ safety.
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AusNet Services has planned an outage which will affect about 1500 households and businesses between 8.45am and 4.30pm.
The day without electricity meant Beechworth Community Childcare Centre had to make the difficult decision to close its doors.
Committee of Management president Danni Castagna, who also has a child at the centre, said it was frustrating to receive only eight days notice from AusNet.
The centre provides meals which have the same food safety standards as in a hospital and uses air-conditioning to keep children comfortable, including babies as young as six months old.
Ms Castagna said landline phones and another essential services powered by electricity would also be gone and she was not prepared to put children as risk.
“We were really cautious of how it was going to impact families,” she said.
“Eight days of notice didn’t give us an opportunity to come up with a solution.”
Families will not have to pay for childcare on Thursday, but the centre will still have to pay permanent staff, losing about $5000 in total.
Ms Castagna said parents were also frustrated by the decision, but understood the centre could not stay open.
Beechworth mother Natalie Willis questioned why AusNet chose to conduct the works during the day at the hottest time of the year.
“As a working family, no childcare with less than a week’s notice is a major issue for us and all families affected – we are forced to take leave at significant personal cost,” she said.
“Loss of earnings for local business will also be significant with no electricity in hot weather in a tourist town.
“This is a big impact.”
The power outage will affect Gapstead, Whorouly, Murmungee, Baarmutha, Stanley and parts of Beechworth as field crews conduct bushfire safety and maintenance work.
“We have tried to minimise the community impact by conducting much of the work without shutting off power, however the remaining work will require electricity to be turned off,” an AusNet spokeswoman said.
“Given the predicted heat, we have put on extra crews so we can get the work done as quickly as possible.
“We understand that any interruption to power supply is inconvenient and we thank customers for their patience.
“While it is a customer’s responsibility to have contingency plans in place in case of a power outage, we write to customers about 10 days before the work is scheduled so they have time to plan for the event.”
