Cost of living crisis: boss of Preston's San Marco restaurant exploring solar panels to cope with soaring energy prices

Carlo Bragagnini of the San Marco group of Italian restaurants fears for the future of the leisure and hospitality industry due to the cost of living crisis.

The owner of chains, which includes the Italian Orchard and Angelos and has cemented itself as a family favourite in the city for more than 40 years, claims many businesses on the high street will not see Christmas if something isn't done soon.

As experts have warned UK pubs would have to raise the price of a pint to £20 in order to survive, Carlo believes many of the high street shops will not make it until next year.

He said: "The current situation is very bleak. Restaurants, theatres, hotels won't see it out until Christmas unless something is done with immediate effect.

"We are looking at various types of renewable energy, solar, batteries to store electricity at the night time off peaks rates which can then be used during the day, perhaps even wind energy at our bigger sites where feasible.

"Business has been very strong of late but I feel with all the doom and gloom in the media with regard to the cost of living crisis, rising inflation, imminent recession and the actual reality that people will very soon have much less disposable income we will see a slowdown in the coming months."

He added: "The market for gas and electricity is completely out of control, we have for many years used a broker and been very careful on locking in pricing short term or long term due to market predictions.

"They could reduce VAT as a starting point as they have in the past, perhaps remove the green levy on utilities for a period while the markets stabilise, introduce a cap for business utilities?

"There are many vehicles at their disposal to help people in this current crisis, it’s important they act now though as I feel many will close before they even see Christmas.

"The current situation sees prices rocketing extortionately and the only choice is to go short term and hope either government lend support, cap pricing or the market changes.

"I renewed one of our smaller sites last week and the price has increased 460 per cent compared to the two year deal we had just come out of.

"In a nutshell a small restaurant that was using £40,000 of electricity per year is now paying circa £200k for the same consumption.

"The government needs to step in immediately to avoid closures of numerous independent retailers."

Asked whether he thought people would stop venturing out to bars and restaurants come winter, he added: "I don’t think people will stop venturing out completely but, as we have always seen in previous recessions and times of crisis, people certainly cut back on life’s luxuries and are more careful where and when they spend their hard earned cash."

Analysis of Google search data reveals that searches for ‘apply for a loan’ exploded by 295 per cent in the United Kingdom in August as Ofgem announced the energy price cap rising to £3,549 per year - an 80 per cent increase.