Gloucestershire firms facing eviction in energy bill row

Businesses at the Lydney Industrial Estate were served a legal notice by Mercia Real Estate

Sixteen family firms on a single trading estate have been given a week to settle their electric bills or face eviction

The businesses based in the Lydney Industrial Estate in Gloucestershire are all challenging their bills after energy prices quadrupled this year.

The power is all supplied by the landlords, Mercia Real Estate, who blamed global energy price rises.

They told the BBC the contract offered "the best overall value".

Green Councillor Mark Topping has written to the landlord backing the businesses and calling it a "terrible deal"

Across the UK small firms have been struggling with energy bills following the big global increase in the cost of power during 2022.

But the problems of those on industrial estates have gone largely unnoticed.

They are particularly powerless because they cannot negotiate their own energy contracts, but must rely on their landlord to do so.

On the estate in Lydney, companies faced a price rise from 18p a unit to 78p, more than four times as much.

The family firms all paid what they thought they owed and placed the bills into legal dispute.

Mr Manns said he could not afford to pay immediately

Nonetheless, Mercia Real Estate served legal notice on them to pay up in full by 12:00 BST on Friday or face eviction from their workshops and factories.

Just before noon on Friday, the company extended the deadline by a week to 24 May but no concession was made on the size of the bills.

Andrew Manns runs an engineering firm, making steel girders for the building trade.

He said there was "no way" he could pay such a large bill immediately.

"The total cost is £40,000 for three months, when it should have been about £10,000," Mr Manns said

"So I guess that's the end of everything we've built up."

Linda Thorne, director of Custom Moulding Polyurethane, has been co-ordinating the challenge to the bills.

"It's a bit of a relief," she said.

"That 12 o'clock deadline has gone and people can relax a bit.

"But, at the same token, these bills are still in dispute with us. It has not been handled well, it's atrocious."

Mercia Real Estate (MRE) would not comment on the legal proceedings but told the BBC the current electricity contract was the best deal available.

Furthermore, the company insisted prices would fall in July.

In a statement, MRE said: "With renewal options for July being received for 50% of the current pricing we believe that the strategy employed has and will continue to deliver below the market average for the period."