London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Rising energy costs ‘will force thousands of corner shops to close’

Rising energy costs ‘will force thousands of corner shops to close’

Association of Convenience Stores urges chancellor to provide more financial support for small shops

Thousands of corner shops will be forced to close due to surging energy costs unless the government steps in with emergency support, a trade body has said.

The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) has written to the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, saying that without financial support its members will be driven out of business. “We will see villages, housing estates, neighbourhoods and high streets lose their small shops,” the letter says.

The trade body, which represents 48,000 local shops employing 405,000 staff, said energy bills had surged to an average of £45,000 for smaller members, a figure more than double what store owners had been paying before renewing their contracts in recent months.

Collectively, it said its members were facing energy bills worth £2.5bn, and needed a support package worth at least £575m to stay afloat.

“The government needs to understand that this is an emergency. Thousands of convenience stores will be forced to make extremely difficult decisions in the face of tens of thousands of pounds of additional energy costs in the coming months, which at best will include cancelled investments, reduced staff hours and increased prices in stores, pushing up inflation even further,” it said. “For some, however, the cost of energy will make the business unviable, and so they will be forced to close unless action is taken to provide meaningful support.”

The rescue package outlined by ACS would include an emergency price cap on electricity for small businesses, and a freeze on further increases in business rates, which ACS also said should be scrapped between October and March.

“We cannot overstate the urgency of the situation faced by our members. These are highly resilient businesses selling a wide range of products and services, adapting to the changing needs of their local communities. ACS does not usually forecast large-scale closures of convenience stores, but we are in all seriousness doing so now,” ACS’s chief executive, James Lowman, wrote in the letter.

A Treasury spokesperson said the government understood that people were struggling with rising prices and was trying to support businesses “to navigate the months ahead”.

“We’ve cut taxes for hundreds of thousands of businesses by increasing the employment allowance and slashing fuel duty. We’ve also introduced a 50% business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, and put the brakes on bill increases by freezing the business rates multiplier, worth £4.6bn over the next five years,” the spokesperson said.

“We are making necessary preparations to ensure a new government will have options to deliver additional support as quickly as possible.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×