Summary
A business owner has spoken out about the ‘devastating’ damage done to her office building after a suspected arson attack. The building on the Kingsditch Trading Estate in Cheltenham was caught in a blaze on Tuesday, September 15, at around 9pm when a fire was lit in some bins out the front of the premises.
Details
The site, which is home to the offices for Cheltenham-based clothing brand, HERA Clothing, suffered ‘tens of thousands of pounds’ of damage, as the windows and doors were blown out by the flames.
However, the building is now boarded up where needed, and staff are able to get back inside and resume work as normal – although one of the co-owners of HERA Clothing said the impact has been ‘devastating for a local business‘.
A woman who co-founded the fashion brand in 2015, said: “We’re about to go into our busiest season as a business, so we’re really lucky to be able to get back into the building and get up and running. “It’s just devastating for a local business like us. We’re quite well-known in Cheltenham, although it does appear to have been a random arson attack.
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It’s almost like he did it for pleasure. It’s strange. “It was quite terrifying when we initially heard, you worry about what it is in the building that’s set alight.
And then when you realise it’s arson, there’s worry, concern because you don’t know why they did it. “But we can’t afford to not be operational, so we’re not going to be scared of anyone. We have to be resilient.” The woman said that the suspect, who left the property on foot, is still at large, but was captured on CCTV footage which has now been passed to police.
Gloucestershire Fire Service were also called and were on the scene within 10 minutes of the fire being reported, she said. She said: “It all went up in flames quite quickly, they were big fires.
But we got every single movement that he made, down to starting the fires, and police were able to track his movements from when he left the property, so we’re hopeful they will find him and this won’t happen again to others.” A spokesperson for Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service said: “We were called to Kingsditch Trading Estate in Cheltenham at 9.20pm on Tuesday 15 September.
Report source: Gloucestershire Live
