Boots is being urged to compensate neighbouring shops for lost trade during a four-day road closure while the Brighton store’s insecure roof was repaired.
North Street was shut for four days while contractors made the roof safe at the Clock Tower branch, on the corner of Queen’s Road, after it damaged by a storm.
Brighton and Hove City Council said that neighbouring businesses lost vital trade while the work was carried out.
The council said: “North Street was temporarily closed last month after damage to Boots caused by Storm Kathleen meant urgent work was needed to secure parts of the store’s roof.
“A safety cordon was set up to protect residents from falling debris and to allow Boots to arrange for its contractors to complete the work.
“This led to some neighbouring shops within the safety cordon closing for four days to protect staff and customers while others were heavily impacted by reduced footfall.
“The council has now written to Boots to express its concern at the impact the work had on those businesses and the wider disruption the road closure caused to residents and visitors.
“The letter highlights the damaging impact four days of closure will have had on the finances of those neighbouring businesses and to ask Boots to explore ways to provide suitable levels of compensation to those affected.
“It also raises concerns that this work could have potentially been avoided given the same section of roof was also damaged by winds in November of last year.”
Councillor Jacob Taylor, deputy leader and cabinet member for finance and city regeneration, said: “The safety of our residents and visitors will always be our priority and so it was absolutely right to close this section of North Street while repair work was taking place.
“This did, however, have a significant impact on nearby businesses – including some who were closed for four days during the busy Easter school holidays.
“We think it’s only fair that Boots talk to those businesses most affected by this work to discuss ways to compensate them for the loss of trade.
“Our understanding is Boots is planning major investment in its store over the summer which we welcome. Hopefully this work will help avoid similar emergency work being needed in the future.”
Dear affected business.
Did you know that your insurance is useful in these circumstances. You can ring up your insurance company and tell them what happened. You may have to fill in a form, but its actually worth it.
They will claim against Boots on your behalf and your premium will be unaffected.
Maybe someone should also inform the council about this miraculous process?
As many businesses found out during Covid their ‘business interruption’ policies were absolutly useless.
And in most cases those insurers will expect you to claim from Boots in the firstplace before they’ll entertain a claim on themselves.
Business insurance anyone?
Don’t tell us all about insurance; tell Councillor Jacob Taylor, deputy leader and cabinet member for finance and city regeneration…..
So what boots needs to do is speak to their insurer to come to come sort of agreement. Because that’s how insurance works. You don’t claim on your own insurance if the issue was caused by someone else, you claim on theirs. The people here banging on about insurance clearly have no idea 😂