BID Leamington joins campaign against spiralling energy costs for businesses which could lead to ‘collapse of the high street’

BID Leamington has joined a national campaign against spiralling energy costs for businesses which could lead to ‘the collapse of the high street’.

Stephanie Kerr, the executive director for BID which promotes and supports the economy in Leamington town centre, has said that in some cases businesses’ energy bills have more than tripled.

This is on top of labour shortages and increases in the cost of insurance, wages, deliveries, haulage, products and more.

BID is now part of the #BusinessSOS campaign, founded by organisations representing over 150,000 retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses.

The #BusinessSOS campaign believes mass closures and redundancies are inevitable if the Government does not swiftly implement measures that alleviate the critical pressures that businesses, like households, have been facing since April 2022.

It is proposing that the headline rate of VAT is reduced from 20 per cent to 12.5 per cent and that the VAT rate for business energy bills is reduced from 20 per cent to 5 per cent to match domestic billing.

It also wants a business relief rate of 100 per cent until March 31 2023 and a discounted kwh price on all business energy bills.

Stephanie said: “BID Leamington is supporting the Business SOS campaign, which calls for critical support for businesses as spiralling energy costs alongside other increases threaten the sustainability of businesses and our town centre.

"Alongside this desperately needed government support, we are also calling on our local authority partners to identify support initiatives that they can deliver locally to help businesses, staff and customers.”