Council hasn’t paid gas bill for 18 years
A COUNCIL faces a monster gas bill after shocked bosses discovered that no one had paid it for almost 18 years.
An investigation is now under way to find out how the authority failed to register with a supplier.
It will also decide if any ex-councillors or employees should be reprimanded for landing the public with the back payment for an account which should have been settled monthly from 2004.
It appears no one wondered why Beverley Town Council, in East Yorkshire, was not receiving monthly gas bills – until the boiler at its HQ finally broke down before Christmas.
When the town clerk called Northern Gas to get it fixed he was stunned to discover the council was not a customer. It was then revealed the council had not signed up to a supplier when it moved to a new two-storey office building in 2004.
Councillor Denis Healy said: “We are absolutely shocked. It beggars belief that this has been going on all this time.
“How much we owe is the six million dollar question. We have a duty to the public to get to the bottom of it and find out what has been going on. Energy costs are in the news, people are worried, and here we have an organisation getting it for years without a bill. It is staggering.”
Northern Gas has confirmed it will use standard rates from Ofgem to calculate a back payment to 2004.
A council probe will now look at who failed to read the original office tenancy agreement properly. A report reveals: “The lease states that utility supplies are the responsibility of the tenant.”
Councillors believe the energy used to keep its radiators hot was written off for years as a leak by gas officials.
The situation has left energy suppliers reluctant to touch the council’s application to join them. Cllr Healy said: “British Gas are the only ones talking to us. We are still trying to persuade them to allow us to become a customer. We hope they will take pity on the council.”
The authority, which gets well over £1million a year in taxpayer funding, runs services in the market town, such as allotments, parks and CCTV systems.