A PUB boss fears he may have to shut during quiet periods and pass on the soaring cost of electricity to customers, if he is to stand a chance of surviving the winter.

Steve Haslam, owner of Bread and Cheese Pub in Benfleet, says he will also consider reducing opening hours to cut back on electricity use. 

He says bills at the pub, and his other firms Urban Fresh and The White Horse near Billericay, have increased on average by 400 per cent since pre-pandemic levels.

It comes as Ofgem has confirmed an 80 per cent rise in the energy price cap, sending the average household’s yearly bill from £1,971 to £3,549.

The cap will come into effect on October 1, but bills could pass £5,000 in the new year. 

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Costs are expected to be far higher for businesses, and Mr Haslam is already looking at huge energy bills.

“To put it in perspective, I need to earn an extra £6,000 profit in order to pay bills, “he said.

“It is making it harder and harder to make a living, and come the winter we have heating bills on top of that, which is an extra £500 a week.

“We all have to look at whether we may have to reduce opening times, close when it is quiet, early, or between lunch and dinner, and we will have to look at ways of cutting the cost in order to get through the winter.

“It will be unsustainable for many and at the very least it will mean pricing increases to the consumers in order to get through, which is just at the point where everybody is facing challenges of their own in household and domestic.

“But it is that or closure, we don’t want to pass on our cost, but we have to for survival or we will be lost forever.”

Shelley Buckley, manager of Home Made Bakery in Leigh, added they have already started upping some prices as they brace for huge energy bills.

She said: “As a bakery, we operate 24 hours a day as our production is vast and very full on. This does mean our ingredients, power, utilities, and wages really are at their highest yet, and are set to become even higher.

“We continue to be as careful as we can, we don’t use any machinery or have lights on where it is not necessary, we run on fairly minimum staff, and we are cautious with what produce we order.

“As you can imagine, we have had to put our prices up already.”

Bradley Oldham, owner of Oldham’s fish and chips shop in Westcliff, says small businesses are among the worst hit by rising bills.

He said: “We don’t know impact of our next bill yet, but we are braced for it, it will start to take up all our savings.

“Even at this point it is high enough. Bills, fish and oil has never been so high, we are fighting it from all directions.

“The problem is it all gets passed on to small businesses. I can understand how so many can’t swallow that, and that they have no other option than closure.”