A SHOP owner in Weymouth was shocked when he opened his electricity bill to find that it had rocketed by £1,400 in one month.

Gary Dipple, owner of Tidings News in Southill, saw on his utility bill from Electricty4Business that charges had increased from just under £90 a month in August to more than £1,500 for this month.

The firm has said there is nothing untoward' about his bill and that he may have under-estimated energy consumption.

Mr Dipple, who has been running the shop for six years, claims he has done nothing to justify the price hike.

He said: "There is no way on earth that I used this much electricity, it's ridiculous.

"I have been here for six years and all that has changed in that time is me buying a lottery machine, CCTV cameras and a new gantry that uses some fluorescent lighting, but the meter has been read lots of time since then."

Mr Dipple switched to the supplier in December last year after it initially offered him a lower price than he was paying at the time.

Mr Dipple said: "It must be a faulty meter as we have had to change ours frequently in the past due to wrong readings being given.

"A previous supplier was charging us £150 a month because of a faulty meter and we were able to get a £4,000 rebate from them. This must be the case again as there is no way on earth it can be that much."

Leanette Havenga-Stokes, of Nelson Bolstock, the PR company which represents the firm, said there were a couple of reasons as to why the increase might have occurred and that Mr Dipple may have to pay the new charge.

She said: "One reason, which we are investigating, is that there could be a faulty meter and an engineer is to be sent out to check the meter's readings If they are wrong, we will replace them and amend the bill.

"If that is not the case, however, it will be due to increased energy consumption where the client has under-estimated his yearly consumption and the meter has picked up a huge forecast of energy usage."

The company says that Mr Dipple agreed a contract with the firm which proposed his consumption usage level over the next 12 months and the energy was priced to match this usage level, with it being split into 12 monthly payments.

This estimation of his yearly consumption resulted in him being charged less than £90 a month for his electricity but the firm's meter readings showed that consumption over this 12-month period could be as much as five times higher.

The company said that he was underpaying for his electricity for the first nine months of its contract and in order to avoid a larger bill for next year, it split the amount they felt was owed over the final three months of this year's contract.

This resulted in his bill rising from £87.17 in August to £1,526.74 for each of the months September, October and November.