Sharkey’s Southampton hit by £237,000 electricity bill

Rod Cake and Leon Lindbald of Sharkey’s have refused to pay for the last 16 months as they say Pozitive Energy have massively overcharged them.

But the energy provider stands by the hefty bill, saying there are no discrepancies from the readings of the meter they installed.

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Leon feared for the future of their business and said: “If that was truly our energy bill, the Southampton venue would make no money.

“That’s our yearly profit out the window.”

The 50-year-old's eyebrows were raised when the site’s electricity bill rocketed three months after opening last year.

Rod (left) and Leon at the opening of Sharkey's last June (Image: Newsquest)

Now, he claims the energy company has tried to charge him more than triple what they should be paying.

He said: “Our first monthly bill after opening was £8,000, but the second month it shot up to £19,000, then £27,000 the following month.

“We have 110 television screens in the bar, so I totalled up all their electrical usage.

“This showed that if the figures from Pozitive were correct, we would have to be running a thousand TVs, 24 hours a day."

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Months later, Leon decided to install another meter, independent to the smart meter from Pozitive.

This revealed - he claims - that the smart meter was measuring three times more electricity than the meter Leon had installed.

Rod, managing director, said Pozitive Energy will ‘not accept’ their readings are too high.

He said: “We’ve had to go to an independent company to figure out what’s been going on.

“It’s disgraceful. It feels like they are ripping us off - £30k a month for electric is what you’d pay for a big site like Westquay.

“If we did pay this amount, the business would be in big trouble cashflow wise.

“We realised that something was drastically wrong.

“The one good thing about this is that we haven’t paid them but doing that has caused us problems as it affects our accounts.”

Leon feared the venue might not survive if he and Rod had to fork out for the electricity bill.

He said: “It’s a battle we don’t need to have, I am shocked by it.

“Rod and I had a discussion and if it did turn out to be true, we would’ve worked around it, but it would have been incredibly difficult.”

A Pozitive Energy spokesperson said: "We encourage the customer to continue engaging with us on this matter directly so that we may assist with any concerns.

"However, based on our internal investigation, it is evident that there are no discrepancies in the main meter's consumption measurement."