ARC the herald angels sing...

Early Christmas gift as £30k bill is written off

CHRISTMAS has come early for an Abbeyhills community centre left stunned by a £30,000 bill.

Volunteers at the ARC are celebrating after E-ON dropped its demand for the money — after the electricity firm admitted that it had read the meter incorrectly for six years.

Now it is hoping that the New Year will bring more good news as it battles to stay open amid the fear of council cuts.

Management at the centre in Abbeyhills Road were shocked when they received the bill.

E-ON said that the centre had been underpaying for years because the company thought the meter had a different number of digits.

It even asked the community centre — which only receives £13,000 funding a year — to set up an £8,000 direct debit.

But E-ON has now written off the arrears and centre chairman Faye Mills described it as the best Christmas present ever.

“We were devastated when we got the bill. We are already under threat of losing our funding and we do not know if we will have to close down,” she said.

The ARC is used by a range of people of all ages from youth groups to friendship clubs.

It is among the borough’s community groups which are anxiously waiting to find out if they will be able to continue, with funding due to be announced in the next couple of weeks.

Faye added: “I know there are going to be cuts. It is not just us and the knock-on effect will be devastating.”

A spokesman for E-ON said: “It was an administrative error made while reading the meter — we thought it was a five-dial and it was actually a six-dial meter.

“We are happy to admit our error, especially at this time of year.”