Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Economic and Social Development introduced a report on the implementation of a Local Discretionary Business Rate Relief Scheme for 2017/18 to support the dispersal of grant funding aimed at compensating local businesses that had been adversely affected by the Government’s revaluation of business rates which came into effect on 1 April 2017.

The Cabinet Member advised that the grant totalled £909,000 over the four-year period up to 2020/21, with over half (£530,000) to be allocated in 2017/18 and reducing each year thereafter.  The funding would be open to small local businesses with a rateable value (according to the 2010 Valuation List) below £70,000 whose net rates payable had increased by at least 1% as a result of the 2017 revaluation.  Current estimates suggested that 1,129 local businesses would be eligible to apply for support, with the average award being £402.

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Performance and Delivery referred to a change to business rates for newsagent and other small outlets that provided free-to-use Automated Teller Machines (ATMs or cashpoints).  The changes increased the rateable value of those premises which the Cabinet Member suggested would, in turn, lead to free-to-use ATMs being replaced with fee-charging machines, although the Cabinet Member acknowledged that the relief arrangements may go some way to reducing the impact.

The Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the four-year grant funding arrangements for the Local Discretionary Rate Relief Scheme, following which the costs of providing relief to the affected businesses would need to be absorbed into the Council’s overall budget; and

(ii)  Approve the Local Discretionary Business Rate Relief Scheme 2017/18, as set out at Appendix A to the report.