A salon owner has spoken of how she lost her Valentines Day custom due to a fire in her business.

Kerry-Lee Draper, 34, who owns Just Pampered on Rayleigh High Street, has had to close her salon doors after a fire erupted in the kitchen area in the early hours of Tuesday morning, February 13.

Services have been diverted to their Great Baddow branch while the Rayleigh salon remains closed for what Kerry-Lee has said will be “at least a week.”

But this has meant that Kerry-Lee has lost custom as a lot of her clients are not willing to travel as far as Great Baddow, near Chelmsford.

She said: “At the moment, all staff have temporarily relocated to our Great Baddow salon.

“However, this has had a knock-on effect for customers as a lot of them can’t travel that far. We are all just waiting for the green light to go in and clean up the place.

The insurance company has hired cleaners to go in to the salon and tidy up the mess caused by the fire, which the fire department has recorded as having been started by a tumble dryer.

Kerry-Lee has voiced her frustration at the loss of custom she has faced owing to this blaze.

She says that the fire happened at one of the most inopportune moments as it occurred the day before Valentine’s Day – which she says is one of the busiest days of the year for her.

She added: “This is really frustrating.

“”It happened on Tuesday morning so we had to close on Valentines Day.

“Valentines Day is normally such a busy day for us so we have lost a lot of custom.

“The customers and the landlord have all been very supportive, but this is still a very frustrating situation.”

Just Pampered issued a statement on their Facebook page informing customers of the temporary closure and the fact that staff had momentarily moved to their branch in Great Baddow.

Essex fire service confirmed that they were at the scene.

They say that they believed the fire had started at night and burnt until the early morning when it was reported.

A spokesman said: “Firefighters were called to a shop in High Street, Rayleigh at 8.44am on Tuesday, 13 February.

“On arrival crews reported that a fire had burnt overnight in the kitchen area of a store, after a tumble dryer had ignited.

“Firefighters used a thermal imaging camera to be sure that there were no remaining hotspots before leaving the scene at 9.11am.”

The kitchen has experienced smoke damage.