2:10pm Friday 17th April 2009
By Mike Laycock
HELP is being offered to hundreds of York firms hit by massive increases in their business rates.
The Press reported recently how many businesses were being hit by a double whammy of soaring rents and rates at a time when income was falling because of the recession.
Jim Hardie, landlord of the Blue Bell pub in Fossgate, said his rates had leapt by £6,000 to £14,000 a year because of the loss of transitional relief, intended by the Government to phase in rate rises.
He said the amount he paid had soared from £2,500 eight years ago to £14,000 today.
York MP Hugh Bayley called on City of York Council to take steps to help struggling businesses, for example by deferring some of the rates rise.
Now the authority has written to businesses to tell them they will be able to do just that in the summer.
Lisa Phillips, head of York customer centre at the council, said the Government had announced that ratepayers would be allowed the option to defer payment of a proportion of the increase in their bills for 2009/10 until 2010/11 and 2011/12.
“This summer, the Government will issue regulations allowing the deferment of 60 per cent of the five per cent annual increase in the 2009/10 bill,” she said.
“In addition, if you lost transitional relief on your 2009/10 bill, you will also be able to defer 60 per cent of that increase.”
She said the scheme would be optional and the council would need to calculate and agree the deferment. Because the necessary legislation was unlikely to be published until late July, businesses would have to continue paying their rates in the meantime accordance with instalments shown on their bills.
She said businesses who paid lower amounts this year would make up the payments in the following two years.
A business with a typical property, which was facing a £600 rise in its liability, would be able to defer £360 of that amount.
But Mr Hardie was scornful of the offer of help, saying: “This is like putting us on death row – we can die next year instead of this.
“They should have kept the transitional rate relief. This is a very, very minor bit of help.”
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