With energy bills set to spiral, independent traders are facing a painful winter.

Businesses in one Kent high street told reporter James Pallant how they’re bracing themselves for the months ahead…

From greengrocers to home goods stores, establishments all along Whitstable High Street are cutting costs wherever they can.

They had been already tightening the belt over the last few months to prepare for the winter.

But following Ofgem’s announcement this week that the average household’s yearly energy bill will leap from £1,971 to £3,549 in October, businesses have also been left fearing for their bottom lines.

And inside the Ship Centurion pub in High Street, landlord Roland Birks says he is struggling to stay afloat. He expects his annual electricity bill to approach £30,000.

“That’s a crippling amount of money which I think any normal business can’t sustain for very long, so I can see a lot of places going out of business because of that,” he muses.

“I’m definitely concerned.”

Businesses are not protected by the energy cap - which means they are without a limit on tariffs. Instead, they are immediately exposed to rising prices.

Experts also believe the hikes to household bills will prompt customers to cut back on non-essential spending. This means the coffers of shops, restaurants and pubs could be hit by a double whammy.

Mr Birks has run the boozer for 26 years, but stresses the cost-of-living crisis has plunged him into an “endless battle to keep ahead”. The publican fears that without government support he runs the risk of going bust.

“There’s not a lot of help coming from the government,” he adds. “There’s a lot of talk about helping households, but for businesses there’s been nothing.

“Having to close down would be the end result, we’re going backwards at the moment and you can only go backwards for so long.”

KentOnline revealed last month how the landlord of the Dog at Wingham, near Canterbury, fears his annual utility bill could triple to £101,000 this autumn.

And Mr Birks plans to bring in an energy consultant to advise him on ways he could save money. He’s not alone.

Over at homeware shop Copperfields, owner Kim Foster has forked out £3,000 on changing the premises’ electrics and switching to LED lighting.

The 68-year-old is in a fixed-term contract until February, but predicts after that his annual electricity bill could increase from £5,000 to £10,000.

“On top of that, changes to business rates are going to be effective as of next year, and they could easily double,” he reveals.

“Somewhere along the line we’re going to have to either make savings or increase costs.

“And the problem we’ve had over the last year is that we’ve had continual price increases on products, which we’ve tried to absorb as much as possible, but we can’t absorb any more.

“So what are we supposed to do? There’s only so much budget.”

Shops and cafés in the centre of Whitstable benefit from a consistently high level of footfall from locals and tourists alike.

However, as households struggle with the rising cost of living, business owners worry that demand for their services could fall.

Ed Thomas was opening up his Croatian restaurant, Amedea, alone when I walked past. In a bid to save cash, he has started to work longer hours and cover more shifts himself.

A Croatian cover of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” played over the speaker system as he carefully placed pastries in a display case on the bar.

“What I’m worried about is that with household bills going up, people are going to be staying in and going out less,” he asserts.

“We’ll get a double hit - it’ll get quieter here and our bills are going to go up, which will be pretty tough.

“I’m hoping the World Cup will save the day - we’ll be showing matches here.

“Maybe if people want to save money on heating their house they can come here, and then hopefully there’s a bit of win-win.”

How people keep their homes warm is the business of Nicholas Wallder, the general manager of Invicta Heating on Oxford Street.

As gas fireplaces twinkled through the site’s window, I thought his store would be most likely to be hit by the crisis.

But Mr Wallder says that while the heating bill for his own shop has not been an issue, demand for his products has rocketed.

“As people are becoming more worried about their own heating costs, people are looking for more efficient ways to do it, so efficiency has become much more of a selling point for our products,” he says.

“We do a lot of servicing too, and actually one of the biggest things you can do is to get your boiler serviced to keep them running efficiently.

"Unlike cars, people don’t look at a boiler or a gas fire as something that is imperative to get serviced.”

‘We have the systems in place to help’

Canterbury City Council leader Ben Fitter-Harding says he is also feeling the impact of rising energy costs, as a business owner himself.

But the Tory boss stresses the authority “does not have the money to help”.

“We're not like the national government who can do quantitative easing and make money - we need to have a balanced budget,” the senior Conservative told Kent Online.

“If and when government grants become available we already have the systems in place from Covid to distribute them to businesses. We will always be a pro-business council."