A LARGE number of businesses were omitted from this year’s Chamber of Commerce Business Directory because of an administrative error. A total of 31, including Condor Ferries, Checkers and Geomarine, were left out of the 2007 directory and Chamber has apologised.

‘Chamber Business Directory 2007 inadvertently excluded a total of 31 companies due to an error on our part,’ said a spokesman.

‘All the companies involved have been notified and we have apologised for the error and any inconvenience this may have caused.’

Chamber has done a 12-page reprint of the directory and offered refunds to the affected companies.

Most of the businesses said the mistake was just one of those things.

Noel Bartlett, manager of St Martin’s Garden and Pet Centre, said: ‘I don’t want to make too much of it. They refunded the money as soon as they made the mistake and we are in the second edition, so they did their best to correct it. We are happy with how they dealt with it.’

Intersport was another company that was missed out and manager Nigel Hurford agreed it was unfortunate.

‘Errors happen and it’s just one of those things,’ he said. ‘There is no point in being angry about it and they have reacted very quickly to sort it out.’

Wedd Osmond of Geomarine said the company would never know if missing out on the first edition had cost it any trade.

‘You never know about business that you didn’t get, so we won’t know if it had an impact,’ he said.

‘I’ve accepted their offer of a refund and they will put us in a supplement, but it’s been inconvenient.’