£20k 'ghost bill' haunts docker club

Published on Friday 15 August 2008 10:32

THE Leith Dockers Club has been landed with an electricity bill of £20,000 after it emerged there was a "ghost meter" on the property.

The club has been disputing the bill with British Gas, and insists it cannot afford to pay a bill that is more than ten times its average annual electric costs.

Members came forward after reading about a similar problem involving the Edinburgh Masonic Club, which was recently hit with a 100,000 bill from British Gas.

The Leith Dockers Club is a well-known local institution. Its fame was cemented by author Irvine Welsh, who used it in both his best-selling books Trainspotting and Porno, and also filmed much of the action of his recent film Wedding Belles there.

The club, on Academy Street, has more than 400 members, who use it six days a week for drinking and socialising.

They said British Gas told them that the extra charges related to a second electricity meter on the property which the company had not previously taken a reading for. But the club insisted there was no second meter, and have demanded British Gas send out an engineer to check over the property.

Chairman Jim Dalgleish insisted the club would be left in serious debt if forced to pay.

"It must be some kind of ghost meter, as we have not seen it, and we have no idea where they suddenly got this from," he said.

"Initially, when we contacted them to say there had been some kind of mistake, they wouldn't give us a reason, but just kept saying that was our bill and we had to pay it.

"When we pressed them they said there was another meter on-site they hadn't been charging."

Mr Dalgleish said the club's average annual electricity bill was between 1300 and 1500.

"Most of the time when they have come to check the meter there has been no-one at the club, so a lot of our bills have just been estimated readings," he said. "I do not understand how there can be another meter that they have not been billing us for, and we really want to get this sorted out."

British Gas insisted that the bill for the Dockers Club was accurate. A spokeswoman said: "

Following a new meter being placed in the property in 2004 there was a delay in our records being updated.

"We are currently investigating what caused this delay and are working with the club to arrive at a solution."