'Disappointing and frustrating': Bright businesses fuming over power outage

President of the Bright and District Chamber of Commerce Marcus Warner has voiced concerns towards the company for a lack of notice given to businesses in the CBD about a major power outage due to scheduled maintenance on Friday, May 3.

Mr Warner said power will be down from 9am to 4.30pm in the tourist precinct of Gavan Street and Star Road, on the eve of its annual gala day for the Bright Autumn Festival on Saturday, May 4.

He said businesses were only told of AusNet's plans two weeks out.

"To us, that was very short notice. Looking at the weather and the current time of year, this is one of our peak tourist periods, so it's a bit of a devastating blow for businesses," Mr Warner said.

"Ultimately, every business is going to try to operate, whether it's the bank, the medical centre, the pharmacy, all the way through to the brewery and the cafes, but many will not be opening tomorrow (on Friday)."

An AusNet spokesperson said the company apologised for the inconvenience.

"AusNet takes maintenance very seriously and we know that there is never a good time to be without power," the spokesperson said.

"Significant planning goes into scheduled maintenance to minimise impacts, particularly for locations such as Bright where winter and summer weekends are busy.

"We've communicated with those impacted ahead of time so they can make contingency arrangements."

Bright Brewery, Riverdeck Kitchen, Ginger Baker and the town's visitor information centre and cinema are among the confirmed closures on Friday.

The business chamber said AusNet advised it was unable to move the planned outage to a later date as it would run the risk of creating a greater impact on tourism with ski season fast approaching.

"It is frustrating. Yes, you can put in certain backups, but, if businesses are having to close because they cannot safely operate, you do lose revenue, you send your workers home, and you still have to pay them," Mr Warner said.

"We've seen throughout the year challenges to tourism and especially to businesses in the Ovens Valley and the Bright area as the cost of living crisis is hitting."

Mr Warner said the chamber of commerce received support from both Indi MP Helen Haines and Alpine Shire Council, but didn't change the scheduled works.

"They basically replied to us and said that in future if we can give advanced warning of some of the major events in Bright and the area, they may look at rescheduling works, but they cannot make that promise because it is deemed as essential and safe maintenance they must conduct," he said.

Alpine Council mayor John Forsyth said its calendar of events will be logged with Ausnet for future reference, which the company was "very receptive of".

"It is a shame that it is at this time of the year. One of the things we are trying to put in place with AusNet is that for rural and remote areas, there is a longer lead time as to when the outage is," he said.

"Under their own policies, they have to give a certain period of time of notification. That's fine I think in the larger centres and the cities where you've got access to many places where you can get a generator if you need to.

"It can be very expensive for a smaller business to have that on hand all the time or to actually buy a generator and have it sitting there idle for a lot of the time.

"It is disappointing. I believe, however, that the upgrade to the business involved is probably essential as well.

"Every day is a good day in Bright, but you can't pick a good day to have an outage."

To add further stress, Telstra has been undertaking maintenance on its mobile phone tower at Bright, which has left users of the network without service.

Telstra confirmed on its website a 4G mobile outage for planned maintenance was estimated to take four-and-a-half days and finish at 9.13pm on Friday, May 3.

Further works are planned from 7am to 5pm on Monday, May 6.

"That's obviously having an impact on businesses who may have their EFTPOS connected to Telstra," Mr Warner said.

"Tourists are coming into Bright and finding their signal just disappears, they have no navigation, they have no apps that they can look at, they can't see when venues are open, they can't see what tourist facilities are open for business."