Philip Dunne MP is encouraging eligible South Shropshire businesses to apply for support through Shropshire Council’s business rate relief scheme, following Shropshire Council being awarded £2,242,000 over four years to help mitigate the impact of the business rate review, which came into effect in April.
The government has doubled small business rate relief, which means businesses in a property with a rateable value of £12,000 or less pay no business rates at all. For properties with a rateable value of £12,001 to £15,000, the rate of relief will go down gradually from 100% to 0%.
- Council have identified over 1,000 local businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £200,000 that have seen an increase in their rates, after all other reliefs have been taken into account. Letters are currently being sent to these businesses with an amended business rates bill explaining the discretionary scheme and advising businesses that if they don’t wish to apply for the relief they should advise the council within 14 days.
Mr Dunne said: “Many local businesses have benefitted from the government’s 100% increase in Small Business Rate Relief threshold. But there remain some business for whom the Business Rate Review in April had a marked impact. So I welcome this additional funding and the fact Shropshire Council are contacting the most affected businesses, to advise them of the help available.
The Chancellor announced two further measures for relief in the last Budget, for those who had lost Small Business Rate Relief or Rural Rate Relief, or those losing Public House Relief. Shropshire Council has sent out information on how to apply for these, but I understand a large number of these applications remain outstanding. So I encourage local businesses to look out for these letters, check their eligibility and make their application.
I also arranged for the Chief Valuation Officer for England to visit Ludlow in the summer to hear for herself the impact of some of the proposed increases. I have recently heard back that she expects shortly to complete her review of the rating structure applied locally, so I hope to be able to inform businesses affected in the next few weeks.”
Shropshire Council has been allocated the following discretionary funding over a four-year period to provide additional discretionary relief to businesses adversely affected by the 2017 revaluation.
- 2017/18 – £1,308,000
- 2018/19 – £635,000
- 2019/20 – £262,000
- 2020/21 – £37,000