NEW YORK WHOLESALE

Gas leak repairs 'costing me thousands every day'

7:20am Monday 18th June 2012 in News By Chris Holland

A furious Bradford businessman is still waiting for workmen to complete repairs to a gas leak which has severely disrupted his operations – after nearly two months.

Amjad Pervez, managing director of Seafresh Wholesale Distributors, said the business had lost hundreds of thousands of pounds due to repair work which has isolated his head office. Closing a local cash and carry operation alone had cost at least £20,000 a day in lost takings.

He reported the leak after smelling gas on April 19 and Northern Gas Networks engineers required around 60 staff to evacuate the firm’s offices on Mount Street, off Bowling Back Lane. Gas was leaking from one of the principle mains serving the Bradford area buried deep underground.

Mr Pervez, whose company is a major supplier of food and drinks for caterers and also operates nine cash and carry warehouses, said he had spent £70,000 on converting a nearby warehouse into temporary offices after the repair works surrounded his premises. Daily container deliveries of supplies to the Mount Street warehouse had also been hit by the gas works.

Mr Pervez has enlisted the help of Bradford East MP David Ward to try and find out why the work has taken so long and when it will be completed.

He said: “This has caused tremendous disruption to our business and cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s still going on after nearly two months and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.

“We had to vacate the building within an hour of reporting the leak, which was a nightmare. We had to reorganise data and phone lines and re-house staff in an old warehouse we own nearby which is not big enough to accommodate everyone. I have staff working from home and others are hot desking to enable us to carry on.

“I was promised daily updates by NGN but that only happened for the first few days. Since then I’'ve had to chase them and have been passed around to different numbers. I’ve spent 70 per cent of my time on this issue since it started and I believe there’s been a lack of management on the ground by NGN. It’s unbelievable that the work is taking so long.”

David Ward visited the site and described what he found as “a mess”. He will meet senior NGN officials there next weekend and discuss ways of resolving the matter.

He said: “I want NGN to explain why the work has taken nearly two months and when it will be finished. It’s clearly a big job but it has cost Mr Pervez hard cash and much disruption and I don’t believe he has been treated properly by the company. It’s not good enough for someone to shrug their shoulders and say it’s nothing to do with them when asked questions.”

Northern Gas Networks said it had ensured access to the Seafresh warehouse was maintained. The offices were closed as a safety precaution and regular face-to-face and telephone contact had been maintained with Mr Pervez and other nearby gas customers..

NGN said: “We are sorry that Mr Pervez feels that our communication with him could have been better and will address this with him directly to see where we can improve.

“We have carried out extensive engineering works to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. However, unavoidably complex and time-consuming works have been required. We know this is not ideal but we cannot take chances when it comes to gas safety.

“In addition, the geography of the area requires us to dig very deep to work on our mains. This impacts on the time it takes to complete works as we must ensure the excavations will not collapse – special supports have been constructed for this job.

“As part of the engineering work completed to date we replaced a section of gas main extending out to Bowling Back Lane. This work was completed last week and stopped the gas readings.”