The Wheatsheaf pub has been forced to temporarily close – a victim of rising energy costs.
Publican Michelle Brace has called time for the foreseeable future and said: “It really is as bad as it seems.”
While looking to renew her energy contracts, she said the pub, in Northgate End, was facing winter gas and electricity bills of at least £3,400 a month.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I have made the decision to close the pub temporarily until such a time that this absolute nonsense is rectified,” she announced on Facebook.
“I love my pub, I love my customers, but I can’t run the pub at a weekly loss. I’m sorry for the inconvenience this will undoubtedly cause to many.”
She has called on Bishop’s Stortford MP Julie Marson to step in on behalf of struggling businesses in the constituency. Mrs Marson has yet to respond to a request for a comment.
Speaking to the Indie, Michelle, who took over running the pub in 2016 and was the Business Personality winner in our 2021 Indies community awards, said she had been left with no option but to protect the business’s long-term future.
“I’m hoping it’s temporary, but as it stands we are now out of contract with our existing supplier, which meant shopping around, and going into the colder months we would end up using all the pub’s savings in order to stay afloat.
“I want nothing more than to keep the pub so I’m doing what’s best in the short term so that we have a future long term. It’s a really sad situation.
“I’ve had quite a lot of calls today and people are upset. It’s a community pub where the majority of customers are of retirement age and to them the pub is their daily meet-up – for people living on their own it’s their only contact with people.”
Michelle said the most competitive quotes, as agreed by all three major online price comparison websites, showed the pub would be spending, based on current usage in the warmest months of the year when the heating is off, £1,870 a month on electricity and £726 a month on gas.
“That’s £2,596 per month for my tiny pub to run, on top of rent and everything else,” she said.
“When I look at our usage in winter months, from October it looks as though I’ll be set to spend £3,400 per month at a minimum. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that a pub the size of mine can’t afford that.
“I just hope that by September 5, when we will have some sort of Government in place which can make decisions about the energy crisis, that I will have a better idea of where this pub stands.”
She has an emergency meeting planned with pub owner Admiral Taverns to discuss the way forward and said she would be asking for financial support.
“I’d love for them to have some sort of short-term assistance in place, a rent reduction or something so we can remain open, which is what I’ll be asking for.”
Michelle added that many pubs had spent so much money during the Covid pandemic on outdoor furniture, heating and lighting to keep business going that many had been left short of funds.
“Because of Covid and the amount of money pubs invested, we cannot now afford to put on all the outside lighting and heating – all that is null and void. But we are certainly not giving up.”
