Pub Landlady Forced To Close Pub After Energy Bills Doubled To £112k A Year

A landlady has been forced to close down her pub for good after her energy bills more than doubled to a whopping £112,000 a year.

Miranda Richardson has run the Live and Let Live pub in the village of Harpole, Northamptonshire for the past four years but her time behind the bar is coming to an end.

Sadly, the 48-year-old will soon be calling last orders for the final time due to skyrocketing energy prices pushing her bills up to more than double what they were.

Energy bills to keep the pub running will set her back £112,000 a year, more than double the £48,000 it used to cost, and it has made running the pub unviable.

The village pub survived the coronavirus pandemic but the cost of living crisis has struck and it is doing nowhere near the business required to keep up with rising energy costs.

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Miranda worked out she'd need to sell roughly 1,400 pints a week just to break even and the chances of that are unlikely since the village pub currently shifts between 400 and 500 pints on a busy week.

She said: "If I’m honest at the moment I’m just about functioning. I love doing what I do but I can’t sustain it.

"I have worked as hard as I can possibly can. I will keep going until I shut the door. I do get upset about it and I do get sad but I didn't do it, this is not on me and that's the only way I can cope."

Miranda works at the Live and Let Live alongside six bar staff and a full-time chef but it it costing her £5,000 a week 'just to open the doors' and she has seen her costs rise month by month this year.

She explained that keeping the doors open each week was costing her £2,700 in January, but by March that figure had shot up to £3,800.

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An already impossible task will be made even more difficult when energy prices rise again in October, further putting the squeeze on people's pockets.

Miranda completely understands why the village cannot afford to rally round and keep the pub going as the cost of living crisis is harming everyone and everyone is having to deal with 'their own energy problems at home'.

She said: "Everybody's home bills have gone up so when you're making that choice about going out, of course you don't."

The landlady questioned why more hasn't been done to clamp down on energy companies 'making major profits left, right and centre'.

She also offered sympathy to the many other people running businesses who are 'going to be bankrupt by the end of the year', describing it as 'really sad' that so many would have to close their doors.

The Live and Let Live pub, which is owned by the Stonegate Group, will close for good on 21 July.