Minister on the spot over business rates and town hall efficiency

BUSINESS leaders battling for high street retailers have made a direct plea to Local Government Minister Marcus Jones to speed up the benefits of expected falls in rateable values when they are recalculated in 2017 and greater efficiency in town halls over local regulation.

Jones was a guest speaker at the British Council for Shopping Centres 2015 conference at Manchester Central and was put on the spot by two delegates following his speech.

Jerry Schurder,head of business rates at real estate company Gerald Eve told Jones: “There are going to be significant falls in rateable values across large parts of the country outside of central London – 40 % in some places, like Stockport, Bury.
 
“Can you ensure that the falls in the rateable value are allowed to occur straight away rather than being phased in as they were in 2010 when the maximum decrease in the rates bill in the first year was 4.6%.

“The high streets has waited for seven years for the benefit of rental falls to float through into new rateable liabilities and can’t afford to wait any longer than 2017.”

Jones replied that he understood where Schurder was coming from, but said because the rateable values were under review he could not go into detail.

But he said: “I’m certainly listening to what organisations like yours and others also are saying.

“The only word of caution in relation to what you’re advocating is that you could end up potentially where in certain locations, the business rate could reduce significantly if it was dealt with in the way that you’re advocating, but it also means that in certain locations you could end up with the business rate increasing significantly at the same time.”

BCSC president and chief executive of Hammerson David Atkins then introduced a theme brought up by entrepreneur Henry Dimbleby – owner of health fast food chain Leon – on the first day of the conference on Wednesday, the one of the slowness of licensing and planning regulation and how it hampers business.

He told Jones: “Time and time again what I hear from BCSC members is the lack of resources at local authorities – there aren’t the people, the officers at local authority level who can process what may be very minor applications – it maybe a shop fit application.”

Referring to Dimbleby, Atkins said: “Licensing  requirements can ultimately stop him opening a restaurant.
“In many cases there is the demand there, but because of the process and the lack of people that demand is lost and retailers will walk away. I wonder what can be done to improve that situation.”

Jones said it was a very important point and the Government government needed to get over the local government more the benefits of speeding processes up.
 
He said: “One of the very important income streams now for councils now is business rate retention where councils  can retain up to 50% of new business rates and it’s incumbent on us to push that as hard as we can to make sure local authorities are responding to that ability to raise additional revenue by  making sure they make it easier for people to come and invest.
 
“If people come and invest they will be better off in the longer term.”