'I'm a struggling pub owner and my electricity bill has rocketed to £5,000 a month'
Robin Trippick has owned the Crate and Apple pub in Chichester since 2017 but says it now faces closure after his energy bill skyrocketed.
A pub landlord is calling for more help for the hospitality industry after he saw his electricity bill go up by thousands of pounds.
Robin Trippick, 61, has owned the Crate and Apple pub in Chichester since 2017 but says it now faces closure after his energy bill skyrocketed.
With the energy price rises last year pushing millions of Britons further into a cost of living crisis and businesses into the red, Trippick decided to change electricity providers.
But the new 36-month contract, that began in August, pushed his bill up to £5,000 a month – a substantial increase from the £1,700 he was previously paying.
Trippick managed to get his provider to reduce the bill by half to £2,500 but he has now criticised the government for lack of support for businesses after the autumn statement on Wednesday.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt introduced some tax cuts, but also increased the national minimum wage to £11.44 – a move that Trippick says will force him to put up his prices.
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He says his energy bill and the minimum wage increase could see his pub put out of business – and has called on the government to introduce a VAT break for the hospitality industry to help struggling businesses.
Trippick, who has not been able to pay himself a salary since COVID, explained: "Energy bill change has given us respite, but for us to survive we need more.
"The minimum wage going up by a pound an hour is brutal for us.
"It's a massive amount of money but how are small businesses meant to pay that?”
He added: "For some people, [the autumn statement] has meaningful help but the hospitality association shows that the situation is dire.
"It's getting hit from every angle – supplier costs have gone up, minimum wage and you're still expected to make all the VAT contributions on all this stuff.
"It really feels like hospitality has been hung out to dry. We're just not getting any help."
‘Moving the deckchairs on the Titanic’
Trippick did accept that the chancellor's announcement that a continuation of the 75% business rate discount helps – but more was needed to help deal with the “external pressures put on the business”.
Also announced by the government was a freeze on all alcohol duty until 1 August 2024.
But Trippick said this felt like “they’re moving the deckchairs on the Titanic”.
He added: "Wouldn't it be better to have all these businesses contributing to the economy, instead of letting them go under?”
How many pubs have closed in 2023?
Pubs have faced a difficult few years after they were first forced to close during COVID lockdowns and then being met with rising energy bills.
In fact, research undertaken this year found that their average bills surged by 81% in the year leading up to May 2023.
Data collected by CGA by NielsenIQ on behalf of the British Institute of Innkeeping, UKHospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association and Hospitality Ulster revealed that less than a third of hospitality businesses are optimistic about their future.
Their pessimism may be justified – figures released in September showed that the number of pubs closing in England and Wales surged by 50% over the previous quarter.
Official government statistics showed that 230 pubs disappeared for good in the three months to 30 June due to the impact of soaring costs and pressure on consumer budgets.
The data, which was compiled by commercial real estate specialists at Altus Group, showed a 50.3% jump after 153 pubs vanished in the first quarter of 2023.
It means more than two pubs a day have left local communities over the first half of the year.
The overall number of pubs in England and Wales, including those vacant and being offered to let, fell to 39,404 at the end of June 2023.
It means a total 383 pubs were demolished or converted for other uses.
That figure is nearly as high as the total number of pub closures – 386 – for the whole of 2022.
During the first six months of the year, Wales lost the greatest number of pubs, with 52 disappearing, with both the London and North West regions losing 46 pubs each.
