A LANDLADY is being forced to close her business after her energy bills more than doubled and reached £112,000 per year.
Miranda Richardson, 48, was devastated to shut down her Live and Let Live pub in the Northampton village of Harpole after four years.
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She says she had no other option after her energy bills jumped from around £48,000 to £112,000 a year.
She took to Twitter to share an image of her latest quarterly gas bill which was a whopping £7,724.57.
She tweeted: “Have to laugh when people ask why I’m giving up my pub, you know, ‘The Village Goldmine’.
“Well, hun, this quarterly gas bill should answer that question.”
The post has garnered more than 800,000 views and shares.
Miranda said she would be paying around £30,000 this year for gas alone after the huge bill had almost doubled.
She said: “To even break even I’d have to sell roughly 1,400 pints of lager a week. On average we sell 400 to 500 pints a week and that’s when we’re busy.
“If I’m honest at the moment I’m just about functioning. I love doing what I do but I can’t sustain it.”
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With six bar and waiting staff, and a full-time chef, she said it costs about £5,000 just to open the doors.
She added: “In January the cost of opening was around £2,700 a week and by March that had gone up to £3,800.
“I don’t think enough is done or said to these major fuel companies which are making major profits left, right and centre. I think that’s the shocking thing.”
Another hike in energy bills this October will render her business unsustainable.
She said: “I’m in a wonderful village, but it’s a village pub and I’m tucked away.
“When people may have come out three or four times before, that’s not happening now and I fully understand why.”
In a shocking comparison, Miranda’s gas bill between February and April last year was £1,500 – £6,200 less than the same period this year.
‘SLOWLY SINKING’
The mum-of-two has been overwhelmed with support since announcing the pub will shut its door on July 21.
She said: “The tweet has gone to lots of communities and the general vibe is, ‘Christ, this is what small businesses are facing’.
“In the domestic world there are energy caps. We don’t have caps in business, my bills will just continue to rise.
“There are hundreds of people in the same position as me up and down the country, they’re all slowly sinking.”
Energy prices have been skyrocketing since the end of last year, fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Russia is one of the biggest producers of gas and oil, and concerns have been raised over whether supply could be affected.
It means Ofgem’s boss warned that the cap could soar from £1,971 to somewhere “in the region of £2,800” in October.
Should this hike take place, it could see millions of households pay a further £830 for their energy bills in the winter.
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