Small businesses just getting back on their feet following Covid restrictions are now facing the “heartbreaking” prospect of closure as they receive energy bills of up to £70,000.
Café owner Jan Gillbanks, who runs The Five Fox Lane Coffee House in Leicester, has just seen her annual electricity bill jump from £10,000 last year to £55,000 this year and she estimates that her bill next year could run to at least £70,000.
She said: “It’s heartbreaking. I think I will keep going as long as possible but I think in the New Year we would have to close down.
“What do you do? I’m shocked that this is allowed to happen.”
Ms Gillbanks only opened the 30-table café a few months before the pandemic struck in 2020.
“This is our first full year of trading since Covid”, she said, “It’s been very up and down.”
She said the business was able to survive the pandemic because of government support schemes such as furlough for staff and had been starting to recover after Covid.
But now it is looking less optimistic as the cost of living crisis is hitting her customers in the pocket.
“We were just getting over it and people were feeling quite positive”, she said. “But now people are worried and it will stop them coming to town. Our trade will diminish.”
It comes after Martin McTague, national chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, warned that small businesses had been “left out in the cold” when it comes to energy bills and for many members it could be “the final nail in the coffin”.
My mum owns a small café in Leicester. Her electricity bill has just jumped from £10k ($12k) a year to £55k ($64k) a year.
She is working out her options but more than likely she will be forced to close. pic.twitter.com/7GN4WC77Gl
Ms Gillbanks said: “We need help now. I think they have got to try and put a cap on the bills. It’s just ridiculous”.
For bookshop and café owner Emma Corfield-Walters, in Wales, the reality of the rising energy costs is proving difficult to take in.
Along with her husband, she runs the award-winning store Book-ish in Crickhowell, which was named the best independent bookshop in the UK in 2020.
“I feel massive anxiety”, she said, “I get emotional just thinking about it.
“I haven’t done all the maths because I find it too scary.”
Last year, the firm was paying 13p per kilowatt per hour for electricity. This year it has risen to 43p. Their electricity bill for August this year is £1,900 and the gas is £504.
“Our boiler isn’t operational at the moment and it might have to stay that way”, she said. “It will cost £45 a day to run the coffee machine.”
She said unlike other businesses, they are not in a position to put up prices for their stock to counteract the effect of rising costs.
“The big challenge for booksellers is that the price is on the back of books”, she said. “We can’t put it up.”
In order to pay our electricity bill this month, we’d need to sell 211 £8.99 paperbacks…..
But she is hoping a child book voucher scheme introduced by the Welsh Government may be a “chink of light” to keep the shop going over the next few months along with work they do with schools and the community.
“We have 20 staff on the books, that’s a big responsibility” she said. “We are waiting with bated breath.”
She would like to see a cap on energy increases for SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), the maintenance of 100 per cent business rates relief for retailers and more funding to encourage investment in low energy technology in retail shops to protect retailers from higher energy bills in the long-term.
“I just don’t understand how these companies (energy) are making billions of pounds of profit and nobody is benefitting from it”, she said. “I want the Government to get on with the job and do something for people.”
All rights reserved. © 2021 Associated Newspapers Limited.