Cardiff restaurant gets £13,000 bill for 20 days of…

Cardiff restaurant gets £13,000 bill for 20 days of gas — and is told it's correct

A top Welsh chef has shared an eye-watering energy bill showing the increasing pressure businesses are facing against rising prices. Tom Simmons who runs his eponymous restaurant in Pontcanna posted a copy of his British Gas bill on Twitter with the total amount for the period of April 1 to April 21 coming in at nearly £13,000.

For the 20-day period, the bill, which the chef said was purely to heat the building came in at £12,990.82. Understandably, the chef expected the bill was incorrect. Sharing it he said: "We've recently transitioned to a fully electric kitchen so this bill is purely for heating our building. Obviously, the bill is wrong but they take this money from your account automatically, so you have to spend 2 hours on hold to rectify it!"

However, a week after posting the initial bill he shared that the unbelievable amount was in fact correct. In response to replies to the revelation, he added that the business' was also facing £7,000 a month in electric bills.

The post was met with other businesses sharing up their similar experiences, with Natalie Isaac who is director of the Asador Group sharing that they are spending £40,000 a month across their four sites. She said that "the silence from government is deafening."

It is not only rising prices that are putting pressure on businesses, but it is also the increased cost of produce and utilities. At the start of the month, long-standing restaurant Bully's which has been open for nearly 30 years announced it's closure. On the same day, a second top restaurant also announced its closure for the same reason.

While energy prices are expected to drop as a result of the new energy price cap expected to be confirmed by Ofgem, consumers have been warned they will feel little difference. The industry regulator is expected to announce a £450 drop to its energy price cap from July 1, but there have been warnings that people are likely to feel little benefit to their household finances.

Writing in the latest edition of the MoneySavingExpert.com newsletter (MSE.com), Martin Lewis said Cornwall Insight predicted the price cap would “likely drop 35 - 40 per cent, but what we pay will drop an average 15 - 20 per cent”. In monetary-terms, this would be a decrease of £446 on the UK Government’s £2,500 Energy price Guarantee, taking it to £2,054 a year - based on falling wholesale energy prices.

The cap is mostly based on wholesale energy rates from mid-Feb to mid-May. However, he has reminded people that it's a cap on the underlying rates, so if you use more, you pay more.