Norwich shops threatened by high costs as Frank's Bar shuts

Just this week both Frank's Bar, which has been in Norwich's Bedford Street for almost 15 years and the York Tavern in Leicester Street, which has been in the city since 2014, announced they were closing due to increasing bills, prices and business rates.

Despite being packed with customers every night, Ella Williams, co-owner of Frank's Bar, said the business could not offset the tide of rising costs.

Ms Williams had been planning to sell the bar for three years but was unable to secure a new lease from Norwich City Council, which she felt was necessary for any sale.

However, a spokeswoman for the city council insisted lease arrangements would not have affected a sale.

Ms Williams said: "We were hoping to sell the business in a better economy but obviously that hasn't materialised.

"We're busy all the time even if people are being more considered with their money.

"We had a great Christmas trade but even that was not enough to cover the costs of energy and VAT.

"Norwich has such a great indie scene and it needs to be protected."

At the York Tavern, landlord Andrew McNeil, said business had been "extremely tough" over the last two years and yet more cost increases had left the pub financially unviable.

He said: "Due to the ongoing financial pressures of running a business, we have sadly reached the very hard decision that it is no longer possible for us to continue with the York."

And experts believe city folk can expect to see more long-standing businesses close as the pressure of increasing costs bite hard.

Stefan Gurney, executive director of Norwich Business Improvement District (BID), said city folk can expect to see more long-standing businesses fall if the government continued to do "nothing" to support small shops, cafes and bars.

He said: "It's a terrible environment for businesses at the moment with rising costs, staffing issues and lots of other challenges.

"It's really important the community gets behind its local businesses post-Christmas, at one of the toughest times of the year.

"Rising gas and electricity costs could see the nature of the city change with only those who can afford the rates left."

Mr Gurney said the government needed to change business rates in order to level the playing field with online retail in order to keep people on the high street.

He added: "The government is directly responsible for a lot of the closures we're seeing at the moment.

"Landlords have reduced rates, businesses have changed to turnover-based models and the government has done absolutely nothing.

"There's a complete lack of action as costs continue to spiral.

"This is not just down to footfall as a lot of these businesses are popular."

At Mr Postles' Apocathery in Upper King Street, manager Kir Slater said that while the business was busy increasing costs had been a "big hit".

He said: "We're lucky we're busy because costs are out of control.

"Being busy doesn't hurt when you're trying to keep up with costs but it is quite tough.

"Things quieten down earlier now and drinking has been hit by a lot of people doing dry January, but food has still been busy."

But Justin Rutherford manager of Ber Street Kitchen said he was not worried about the business's future and said it was able to keep up with the bills.

He said: "We were expecting January to be a bad month, but we're shocked how busy it has turned out to be.

"We're doing well, we thought with the cost of living crisis we would see less people but as it stands we're fully booked for the weekend.

"It's obviously sad to see other businesses closing and struggling, but we've been doing really well."