CIVIC chiefs in Southampton have been urged to disclose the costs related to the council’s energy company.

City bosses at Southampton City Council have been asked to reveal the cost and losses related to Citizen Energy.

The company was set up by the council in 2018 and it was a “white label” customer of Nottingham City Council’s Robin Hood Energy (RHE).

However, RHE collapsed earlier this month costing taxpayers millions of pounds.

Opposition councillors are now calling on Southampton City Council to disclose financial details.

The authority said the contract ending with RHE is out of its control.

But it stressed that CitizEn Energy has brought “many benefits for Southampton residents with collective customer savings coming in at £75k and huge CO2 savings”.

However, leader of the opposition Cllr Dan Fitzhenry said: “That has now cost the council potentially hundreds of thousands of public money. They should fully disclose now the costs associated with this project. When the losses started building up they should have stopped this. They should explain why they have not moved away from it.”

Cllr Steven Galton added: “The council have put council tenants on tariffs that we are now discovering there were other tariffs that would have been cheaper. How do they justify that?”

Cllr Steve Leggett, cabinet member for green city and place, said council tenants were able to switch to a provider of their choice at any time with no penalties.

He added: “In a highly competitive market we were always very clear that CitizEn Energy might not always have the cheapest tariff on the market but was a local ethical choice, providing green electricity and reinvesting to alleviate fuel poverty in the city.”

The contract with RHE was for five years, Cllr Leggett said.

He added: “We were halfway through this period and were on track to make a surplus, to fund good causes, by the end of the contract. Councillors Fitzhenry and Galton are using the decision by Robin Hood Energy to end CitizEn’s contract as a political tool. They are in danger of causing distress and harm to the same vulnerable people they are claiming to be concerned about."