A businesswoman says scaffolding outside her premises is ruining her Christmas trade.

The planks and poles went up at The Fairings, Tenterden, without warning, for the windows to be painted.

Shops and businesses have been unable to put Christmas trees on their buildings.

Blerina Shehaj, who was looking forward to her first Christmas at Bella’s Boutique, said: “This is ruining my trade.

“The scaffolding partly hides my shop name and people have said they have had trouble finding me.

“I am very upset about this. I was planning my first Christmas in Tenterden but this is ruining it.”

Caroline Giles, manager of the Sophie Louise card shop, said: “It is not a good time of year to do this.

“It is hard to say if it is affecting trade, but people will not want to walk under scaffolding to get to us.

“We cannot get Christmas decorations up and normally have two card spinners outside to attract customers, but only have room for one because of the scaffolding.”

Businesses in The Fairings received letters from Martin Slowe Property Services in May, saying the landlord wanted to paint the windows and hoped to do the work in July.
Nothing more was heard until scaffolding went up last Wednesday and painters started work.

“We had no warning,” said Mrs Shehaj. “It looks horrendous and I am losing trade.

“I have only been in business here since April and was looking forward to my first Christmas.

“We have been told the scaffolding will only be up for a week, but the painters told me they would be here for four weeks, or longer if the weather is bad.

“We were supposed to have Christmas trees put up on our shops on Friday, but that could not happen.”

David Heath, of Advantec Computing, said the scaffolding had partly obscured their name.

“It is not ideal,” he said. “We were expecting the work to be done sooner and did not get any notice of the scaffolding.

“The first we knew was when it went up.”

A spokesman for Martin Slowe said: “We are not going to make any comment.”