Restaurant blasts £9k electricity bill for month of August
A Craigavon restaurant has hit out after being landed with an electricity bill of more than £9,000 for just one month.
The owners of Number Seven Rushmere took to Facebook to share the demand for £9,362.62, asking how they and others in hospitality could possibly cope soaring costs as winter approaches.
Their post read: “How are we supposed to get through the winter when our summer electric bill for only 1 month is over 9k?
“Electric is normally twice as much for the winter months as well. Our kitchen appliances and heating is gas as well. Enough is enough.”
The post has since been shared and commented on more than a thousand times, with one user writing: “This is terrible, it will lead to a lot of small businesses closing their doors. Meanwhile energy companies are making huge profits and their shareholders are laughing all the way to the bank.
“It seems acceptable (by our so called elected Leaders at Westminster)to shrug their shoulders. We need to get back to having laders that will actually lead and an energy regulator that works for the people too. This crisis will be much worse than covid ever was for small businesses.”
Hospitality Ulster’s Colin Neill said: “We have gone from one crisis to another. It is actually worse than Covid, because at least with Covid there was help, there was support.
“You have 72,000 jobs depending on it. We have seen the start of closures and I really fear come autumn we are going to see energy costs go up again and inflation is predicted to go up again. We haven’t seen the worst of this yet.”
