Express understands that SEL was issued with a price control order last night – compelling it to remove the two legal levies recently added to customers’ bills.
The price control order was intended to be effective from midnight and means by law Sark Electricity Limited cannot charge any more than set by the Electricity Price Control Commissioner.
As EPC, Shane Lynch recently carried out an investigation into the price hikes imposed by SEL from 1 September.
Through that investigation, Mr Lynch said he had confirmed that “a unit price of 113.6 p/kwh charged by SEL for the supply of electricity is neither fair nor reasonable”.
Prior to 1 September, electricity was costing around 50p per unit earlier this year.
In August, SEL’s owner announced it was imposing a legal levy of 40p per unit to cover fees incurred in challenging the compulsory purchase.
It then announced an additional 20p per unit levy to challenge the findings of the EPC which said it would investigate the legitimacy of the first levy.
That took Sark residents and businesses electricity bills to more than £1.13 per unit, with effect 1 September.
Despite the Seigneur branding the charges “ludicrous”, and Chief Pleas refusing to pay the levies for the electricity supply to any government owned building or facility, SEL refused to back down.
Mr Lynch said he could not do anything to immediately force the reversal of the charges as he must follow a statutory process which would see a price control order imposed from the beginning of October instead.
Express understands that has now happened, and the unit price of electricity is expected to have been reduced back down to around 53p per unit, which was the fixed cost charged without the legal levies on top.
Alan Witney-Price, the owner of Witney-Price, has continued to criticise Chief Pleas’ planned compulsory purchase of his business.
This week he shared the contents of a letter set by his Advocates AFR to Guernsey’s Law Officers, who are representing Chief Pleas.
In it, AFR says that a third party remains keen to buy SEL, at a price that Mr Witney-Price is happy to sell for.
AFR said that Mr Witney-Price does not consider the planned compulsory purchase to be human rights compliant and that he will challenge it in court.
He has expressed concerns that if Chief Pleas does succeed in forcing through the purchase of SEL, then taxes in Sark will have to go up or be introduced to cover the costs of buying the business, and the future investment needed in the infrastructure.
It is also said that Mr Witney-Price will waive the legal levies charged on September’s electricity usage if Chief Pleas steps back and allows him to sell SEL to Island Power.
“If the sale to Island Power can progress sensibly, then our client will agree to waive any monies due pursuant to the September levy and there may be other benefits to the residents of Sark should any sensible arm’s length transaction with Island Power be completed,” wrote AFR to the Law Officers.
Mr Witney-Price – through his advocates – set a deadline of 16:00 today for Chief Pleas and/or their legal representatives to engage with his offer to sell to a third party.
“If your client will not now deal with matters commercially and sensibly, it must now commit itself to long term litigation and the attendant costs and risks that flow from that,” wrote AFR.