AN ENERGY supplier has reassured the owner of a Cirencester shop that his premises are not at risk following an electrical explosion, which caused a fire at a nearby book store last month.

Peter Bontoft, 70, owner of William H Stokes antiques shop on Dollar Street, was worried that his store may be equally vulnerable following a fault with a Scottish and Southern (SSE) link box on May 24 which caused a fire at the neighbouring Cornerstone book shop.

He said: “The firemen said to me the reason for the fire was a fault under the pavement and that SSE ought to check my cellar where the electrics come in to see if there is any heat building up.

“I was led to believe the engineers would be checking all the premises along the street but they never came anywhere near [my shop]. It’s a very tight street, the buildings are very close together and people are very worried.

“How do we know this sort of thing won’t happen again?”

However, quick to reassure Mr Bontoft and other residents of Dollar Street, a spokesman for SSE said: “On May 25 there was a fault with our link box close to the Cornerstone Bookshop; this fault caused a fire, which damaged the outside of the bookshop. Our engineers attended the fault at the time, made the situation safe and carried out the necessary repairs to the link box.

“Having carried out a full and detailed investigation into this, we can confirm that the fault was contained solely within the link box and as such, there was no technical possibility of it affecting the cables which carry electricity to nearby properties.

“As the fire service had used water to extinguish the fire outside the Cornerstone Bookshop, the bookshop was required to get a private electrician to carry out a full check of their premises to ensure that none of the water had entered the internal wiring before our engineers were able to safely turn their power back on.”

The Cornerstone shop is housed in the same building as the parish church vicarage and the vicar’s wife Lynne Doolan was asleep during the fire on May 25, though was unharmed.