Small business owners warn they may not survive the winter due to UK energy bills
Small business owners across Britain have told of sleepless nights and fears they will not survive the winter due to looming increases in their energy bills.
Firms have experienced a 424% rise in gas costs and 349% increase in electricity since February 2021, data from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) shows.
Thousands of traders are looking to renegotiate electricity and gas contracts that expire in October as two-year fixed-price supply deals come to an end.
Companies do not have a cap on their energy bills, unlike domestic consumers who will learn the next Ofgem price cap rate on Friday, leaving them at the mercy of whipsawing wholesale gas markets.
Small firms in the UK have raised the alarm over the risk posed to their future. They include:
A hotel in Aberdeen which says it will be cheaper to close for the winter than heat rooms for guests.
A fish and chip shop in Oswestry, Shropshire, where annual energy bills are rising from £9,000 to £35,000.
A chicken takeaway franchisee in Peterborough who fears customers will desert him if he pushes up prices to pay his bills.
An indoor mushroom farm in Bangor, Gwynedd, whose strong trading has been undermined by a “ridiculous” hike in its energy costs.
Paul Bright, who runs the Glasgow bar and restaurant Strip Joint, said the problem was bigger than the pandemic, and from December his annual bill will rise from £22,000 to £80,000 if he stays with E.ON.
“No one is surviving that,” he said. “The only thing that’s keeping me sane is that no one can survive that – something has to be done.”
Companies typically fix the price of the energy costs for between one and five years to insulate themselves from volatile market conditions. This has meant many businesses have managed to keep
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