SSE Energy company cuts off supply to businesses beside Park Hall Hotel in Chorley due to £240,000 unpaid fees

Gaynor Duckworth, 52, who runs Smart Fit Gym and Hyrox on Park Hall Road, Charnock Richard, and Fiona Begbie, 49, who runs Flic Flag Gymnastics are one of many neighbouring businesses having to use generators costing £9,000 in the last five weeks due to an issue with SSE energy shutting of the electricity supply claiming the Park Hall Hotel, which has closed down, owes over £240,000 in unpaid electric bills.

Businesses around the area were issued with a supply termination warning in early April citing that, despite previous reminders to the registered landlord for the Park Hall Hotel that a “substantial balance” remained unpaid. Gaynor told the Post: “We have only been here now for around six weeks and we are having to pay extortionate bills in fuel due to the fact that Park Hall Hotel previous owners for whatever reason have not met their electricity bills so now 10 surrounding businesses have had their electric cut off.

"We need our electric. We can’t keep paying these sort of bills to use generators. We need proper lighting. We are so scared to turn the lighting on because of the extortionate price of the fuel. The hotel feeds 10 businesses here and now through no fault of our own we have been landed with these massive fuel costs. How is that fair? We need help.”

A spokesperson for SSE Energy said: “Over the last three years, SSE Energy Solutions has accrued almost £1m in debt for the supply of energy to Park Hall Hotel. During this time, we have accepted several requests for a Change of Tenancy (CoT) from various companies for Park Hall Hotel. Due to the repeated CoTs and resulting unpaid debts on Park Hall Hotel, we have visited subsidiary tenant businesses on several occasions over those three years to notify them of the non-payment of energy bills by respective landlords with whom we hold the contractual relationship.”

They added: “We advised those businesses that it was in their best interests to seek alternative arrangements, such as the installation of their own supply, to avoid the consequences of disconnection if we took this course of action. Unfortunately, with the continued accumulation of unpaid debt on the property, we disconnected the property in April. We continue to wait for the current landlord to meet certain payment criteria and if those are met, we will proceed to reconnect the site.”

Last year the former owner was seeking to liquidate the company after it was unable to repay its debts, blaming the Covid pandemic and lockdowns for its closure.