A journalist at the Daily Telegraph is looking to speak to businesses that are being hammered by their energy bills. She says she's aware of one small business owner who was asked by two suppliers to put down a £16k deposit for the term of the deal. She wants to know if anyone else is having the same issue - and also to chat to any businesses who are seeing huge energy bill increases. If that's you, tell us a bit about it here and she'll be in touch. It's for this morning so deadline tight. We will also issue a separate story on this to the wider media.

Your business and energy bills

We have a bricks and mortar shop in Bristol and are locked into a terrible energy contract with BES Electricity. Our unit price is 83.45 p/KWh and our bills have increased by nearly 400%. Last month the energy supplier contacted me to say they had made a mistake with the government subsidy and had undercharged me so I would need to pay even more on my next bill. When I called, I was told to email the terminations team, which I have done repeatedly, but with no response. We are currently only open 3 days a week to try and keep our bills down. My bill last month was £378 for electricity only. We have no gas at the property.

Kate Ashwell

Kate and founded Ashwell & Co alongside her husband, Will in July 2014. 

She has had a keen interest in the alternative and fashion since she was a teenager but her true love of vintage and the history of fashion was born when she moved to Camden to study theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Kate is an expert on shapes, styles and the history of 20th century vintage fashion with a particular expertise in wedding dresses including how to clean and restore vintage pieces.

 


We use next to no energy and are hardly a high consumption user. Our bills have still increased by over 400% and are now over £550 per month. We have decided to completely close our office over most of December in an effort to reduce this cost by closing off the central heating in the office.

Samuel Mather-Holgate

I have been working in financial services for twenty years. My specialism is later life advice, focusing on inheritance tax planning, pension advice and equity release. 

We were fortunate to have fixed our electricity bill in the summer. However, we couldn't do that with our gas bill as this is shared with other tenants in our office. The good news is that we recently upgraded the boiler to a more energy-efficient one, and we're adding a new timer so that we can ensure it isn't on when the office is closed. Many of clients have also added solar panels to cut their energy bills and this may be something we look at.

Scott Gallacher

Scott Gallacher is a Chartered Financial Planner, Independent Financial Adviser and Director of Rowley Turton, a Chartered independent financial planning firm based in Leicester. He has worked in financial planning for nearly 30 years and regularly comments in the national media on retirement, pensions, inheritance, investing, tax and later-life planning. Scott is the author of 50 Today 100 Tomorrow: Planning Your Money and Life for the Next 50 Years and founder of 100 Tomorrow, where he writes about retirement, longevity, financial planning and making the most of the years ahead. He is APFS qualified and holds specialist qualifications in pensions, taxation, trusts, investments, long-term care, equity release and divorce. Scott has a particular interest in the human side of financial planning, including when people have enough, when they can afford to retire, how much they can safely spend and how they can help the next generation without compromising their own financial independence.

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This is an issue hitting small, local bakeries hard. Back in September, we called on the PM and Business Secretary for assurance that the government will support small bakery owners through the cost-of-everything crisis. Having followed up a number of times with their successors, we still haven't received a response. They need to take action now, or we will lose more of these valuable members of our local communities from our high streets." More information and case studies here: https://www.sustainweb.org/news/sep22-letter-to-pm-please-help-save-uk-small-bakeries/ https://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/articles/sep22-bakers-lets-talk-energy-crisis/ https://www.sustainweb.org/news/nov22-open-university-small-bakery-study/

Chris Young

Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign since March 2009. His work involves running the Campaign’s international supporter network, creating and running initiatives including Sourdough September, Real Bread Week, Together We Rise (therapeutic/social baking), calling for an Honest Crust Act of better loaf labelling and marketing laws, and No Loaf Lost (surplus and waste reduction), as well as the Lessons in Loaf and Bake Your Lawn programmes for schools.

He’s the author of the books Slow Dough: Real Bread and Knead to Know...more, plus numerous bready reports, and editor of True Loaf magazine. From 2014-18 he also coordinated the London Food Link network, which included editing The Jellied Eel magazine and helping to launch and run the Urban Food Awards.

Chris has pulled on his judge’s wig for BOOM Awards, The Cateys, The Great Taste Awards, The Scottish Bread Championships and The World Bread Awards. In 2017, The School of Artisan Food honoured Chris with its first Fellowship.

Your business and energy bills

4 responses from the Newspage community
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Kate Ashwell

Owner at Ashwell & Co

Samuel Mather-Holgate

Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial

Scott Gallacher

Director at Rowley Turton

Chris Young

Real Bread Campaign coordinator at Real Bread Campaign

4 responses from the Newspage communityCopy all

4 responses from the Newspage community
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