Blackpool
Gazette & Herald, Saturday 8th February, 1947
How Biggest Cut will hit Blackpool
Next Mondays Electricity Slash
Factory and home
FROM Monday no electricity will be
available for industry in Blackpool and on the Fylde coast until
further notice, with a few exceptions. It was estimated last night
that about 10,000 workers will be
affected.
Domestic supplies will be cut off
between 9 a.m. and noon and 2 p.m. and 4
p.m
The situation may continue in this
part of the country for only a day, according to Mr. Shinwell,
Minister of Fuel and Power. Elsewhere, including London, it may
last for a week.
The effect on Blackpool will not be so
serious as seemed likely when the news first broke. Last night came
flashes that transport, telephones, hospital services, newspapers
and food-producing industries will have supplies.
Entertainments are almost certain to
close down, and in those cafes and restaurants able to carry on it
is not likely that there will be any
lighting.
Last night's
interviews.
Here are the Blackpool views given in
interviews with "Gazette, & Herald" reporters last
night:
TRAMS
Walter Luff
Blackpool Transport
manager.
Apparently it will not affect us, so
trams will be running as usual.
CATERING
J. E. Stokes President, Blackpool Cafe
and Restaurant Proprietors' Association.
Our members will face the situation,
and do their best for public. I believe the majority of cafes and
restaurants in Blackpool cook by gas or solid fuel and not by
electricity.
As to lighting well, we shall just
have to manage without electricity as we have done when there has
been a breakdown. The public
will be fed and served to the best of our ability. We shall be open
till 10-30 p.m. as usual.
Mr. S. Gaskin Manager, Clifton
Hotel.
This has come like a thunderbolt, I
don’t think we are classed as an industrial concern, but even so I
don't know what we will do. Kitchens and places like that need
electricity for lighting so that we can see to
work.
SHOWS
Mr.J.H. Clegg
Secretary and a director of the Tower
and Winter Gardens Companies.
This will apply to all the
entertainment industry. We do not make our own electricity - we get
it supplied from the Corporation and it is transformed. The Tower
and Winter Gardens have secondary sources of supply from a battery,
but we can't keep our places going on
batteries.
BREWERY
An
official
Catterall and
Swarbrick's brewery.
We just could not run at all.
Everything here is on electricity. We only boil beer from steam but
don’t run any steam engine. All the machinery is run by electric
motor,
FACTORIES
Mr. S.
Bower, O.B.E. Superintendent
of Vickers Squires Gate.
No electricity and we come to a
standstill.
Mr. J.
Eaves.
Managing director, H.V. Burlingham
Ltd., motor body builders.
If this comes about there will be no
work at the Preston New Road factory, but at the Vicarage lane
factory we can generate our own electricity and work will continue
there.
Mr. F.
Hawtin.
Managing director, Hawtins Ltd.,
engineers.
Cut us off and we shall have to pack
up and go home. About 80 per cent of our production will be
stopped.
Mr G.
Bull.
Joint managing director, Waller and
Hartley Ltd. manufacturing
confectioners.
We will just have to shut down. Some
of our toffee output is tor export.
Blackpool Gazette & Herald, Saturday 8th February,
1947
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