MAN who had an electricity hook-up charge cut in half when he challenged the price is urging other people to check their bills.

John Lee, 35, was setting up home with his wife and seven children in caravans at Parsonage Street, Church.

When he asked Norweb to connect the site to the mains he had already done the spadework himself but was told the job would cost more than £400.

Mr Lee said: "When the inspector first came round he saw they didn't need to do any digging. I was doing it.

"But two lads arrived, thinking they were going to dig a trench. I told them they didn't have to, but then the bill came. I thought it was expensive."

Mr Lee, who cannot read or write, asked former Hyndburn councillor Bill Goldsmith to investigate the charge.

Mr Goldsmith said: "It was made clear to the inspector that no digging was necessary.

"But when the first quote came it was £360 for the connection plus VAT, a total of £423.

"I thought that was far too much for laying a cable and rang the regulators. Norweb wrote back a week later and the quote had come down to £195.

"Someone in Mr Lee's position is not necessarily confident enough to challenge bills themselves and shouldn't have to rely on a third party to make sure they are being charged correctly. "Norweb should give the customer an itemised invoice so it's easier to challenge."

Mr Lee added: "People should always chase up a bill if they are unhappy, or ask someone to do it for them."

John Lucas, Norweb's regional connections manager, said: "We give a standard price to contractors.

"It is expected they will need to do some digging, because we don't encourage customers to dig round live cables. We issued a refund when Mr Lee told us he had dug the hole.

"He was also charged VAT to start with because we weren't sure if the connection was for domestic purposes. That was knocked off, too, when he told us it was.

"It's not our policy to send out itemised estimates -- unless requested by individual customers . That would allow other companies to see our prices.

"The refund did take a while to go through our administration, but we did our best to help Mr Lee."

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