A WORCESTER city centre scheme which aims to reduce business overheads has been a major success for an independent restaurant.

Chesters Restaurant and Bar in New Street has seen its annual gas and electricity bills slashed by £5200 through an initiative run by the city’s Business Improvement District. The scheme, which is operated by approved partners BCR Associates, allows businesses which part of the BID to have their current gas and electricity bills assessed before they use their relationships with the myriad of commercial suppliers to ensure better deals.

The service, which is free to BID members, has certainly pleased the owner of Chester’s Duncan Minshull, who said: "We are always keen to keep our costs down and so to reduce our gas bill by 21 per cent and electricity by 31 per cent and for it to save us over £5000 per year is fantastic. We are obviously delighted at the saving and would encourage any other Worcester BID business to look into it as it was an easy process with minimal effort on our part."

Head of Worcester BID Adrian Field added: "We have had some great successes with this scheme with BCR and would encourage more businesses to find out how much they can save by just letting them see what their current bills are to then find out if there are better deals out there. Over the last few years for example insurance brokers Hazelton Mountford in bank Street have saved more than £1000 and ladies boutique Halo in CrownGate Shopping Centre reduced their phone bill by £230 per annum. In both cases these savings were easily more than the BID levy and so they immediately benefit."

For BID businesses interested in the scheme, call Worcester BID on 01905 731612 or email info@worcesterbid.com