Phoenix Gym in Mitchell downsizes after construction cuts business

Phoenix Combat Sports Gym in Mitchell has moved to a building less than half its former size with fewer staff and classes, after clients stopped turning up.

Owner and head coach Anthony Manning said there had been a 40 per cent drop in membership and a 30 per cent drop in enquiries since light rail construction began.

Stage one of the project is due to be finished this year, and for the past year intense construction activity has caused delays and access problems from Civic to Gungahlin.

The Canberra Times first spoke to Mr Manning last September, when the Mitchell Traders Association formed to lobby for a light rail stop.

"We rely on customers coming three to five days a week so it's much harder to survive when we can't keep any north or inner north based customers because of the traffic congestion," Mr Manning said.

"We've relocated because we had to make a serious choice about either surviving or not surviving."

Support is available to affected businesses through the Light Rail Business Link program, which is run by the Canberra Business Chamber.

But Mr Manning said the "support" was woefully inadequate.

"The Light Rail Business Link Program offers me completely useless, ill-conceived misunderstood programs like 30-second commercials that they'll pay for for me to run on Facebook. So they'll give me a 30-second ad they'll film for free but then I have to pay to market it, or they'll pay for me to do a three-hour course in marketing to help me market my business in a time when people can't even get to my business."

Mr Manning said it would be more useful to offer a rates reduction or financial compensation to businesses.

"The light rail was imposed on businesses both in Gungahlin and Mitchell and all down the north rail [line] with no plan from the government to support those businesses through a lack of revenue and customers," Mr Manning said.

"If you were a farmer in a drought you'd have the ability to get financial compensation but the government only gives tokenistic talk to small business, they'll tell us they understand and they care and it's absolute rubbish. The only way you can really help a business pay their bills is help them with their bills and the government just doesn't do that."

Canberra Business Chamber chief executive Robyn Hendry said she sympathised with businesses affected by the construction and said the chamber offered "tailor-made" support.

"We realise not every business wants the same thing but 24 businesses in Mitchell have opted in for the video and external promotion and they've found it really useful as a tool to remind people they exist or raise awareness of the services they offer," Ms Hendry said.

"Many of our members are so involved in the process of delivering business, sometimes it's useful for them to stand back and think about things in a helicopter way so that's why we're offering marketing programs and 30 businesses have subscribed to those, they've decided they're worth the time and effort.

"Other businesses have opted for one-on-one strategy workshops so they can assess what issues to overcome with the construction or how to build capacity so they're benefiting from construction while its underway. Others are looking to take advantage of the construction so not everyone is on the same page and that's what this program tries to recognise."

Ms Hendry said lump-sum compensation was not in the remit of the program, but they would advocate to government on behalf of businesses in difficulty.

A spokeswoman for Transport Minister Meegan Fitzharris said the government continued to engage with businesses in Mitchell and had recognised their demands by "future proofing" a stop at Mitchell.

"The ACT government will continue to work with Mitchell traders but has not changed its position on compensation," the spokesman said.