After a huge blaze went up today in Reading’s centre, independent businesses in Merchants Place are becoming increasingly frustrated with the developers at Sation Hill.

Local businesses say they have lost significant income due to three major incidents that have happened on the site since the building work started.

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As previously reported, a fire broke out earlier today at One Station Hill, and many local businesses had to evacuate the area.

The other incidents were a second fire that occurred earlier this year on July 7 and scaffolding collapsing during the demolition of the previous site six years ago.

Owner of Ruby Reds Hair Salon Mrs Jenny Lawton said that she and her team are very relieved that there were no casualties but worry about what will happen in the future.

“Thank god everyone is okay,” she said. “We all saw that video of the man being rescued on Twitter.

“But it’s like what could have happened. There have been two major incidents that have happened in such a short space of time, it’s the what ifs really.”

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Mrs Lawton went on to say that she hadn’t thought about pursuing anything with the first two incidents, but now she feels that her business is being badly affected.

She said: “This is the third time the development has caused local businesses to lose a day's work, amounting to thousands of pounds in losses.

“This time we just thought that they cannot let this happen. It’s detrimental to our business.”

Mrs Lawton is also in touch with two other independent businesses in Merchant’s Place, Shed Café and Urban Piercings, who agree that they are also losing valuable business.

“Today has just been an example of us losing thousands. We also now have to get clients back in.

“We are already pretty full for Christmas, so will now have to do extra days and extra hours to get the business back. We are independent businesses, not a big chain that will be able to fall back.”

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Mrs Lawton described the moments when she first became aware of the fire as “very scary.”

She said: “One of our girls bolted in and shouted at us all to get out, and we just dropped everything and ran. We thought the glass was going to blow.”

Ruby Reds had to make the call to cancel all their clients for the rest of the day due to them not being given a timeframe for when people could re-enter their businesses.

“It’s a bit deflating and especially in this day and age,” she said. “I just thought here we go again, losing business through no fault of our own.”

A spokesperson for Sir Robert McAlpine, the developer at Station Hill, said: “We are immensely proud of those on-site whose actions helped ensure a safe evacuation.

“Our site safety procedures and training for dealing with an incident of this nature worked and everyone is safe.

“We are getting in touch with all those affected and are offering support from wellbeing professionals.

“Fortunately, incidents of this nature are extremely rare. The site has been safely secured and a thorough investigation is underway, meaning at this stage we are unable to comment further.”