BRC warns 400 large shops at risk under business rates changes
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned that 400 large format stores will be at risk of closure if they are included in the Government’s new business rates surtax.
This would apply to premises with a rateable value over £500,000.
Subscribe to TRBWhile the Government is introducing a new, permanent reduction in business rates for the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors to replace some of the previous reliefs available to these premises, the measure will be funded by a higher business rates tax band applied to large properties.
If the large shops are placed into the proposed business rates tax band, the BRC warns that up to 100,000 jobs could be lost, and local councils’ business rates revenues from retail could drop by more than £100 million annually.
The organisation is calling on the Chancellor to use the Autumn Budget to deliver the change without shifting the cost onto larger stores.
It suggests that this could be achieved at no cost to the public purse by exempting those stores from the new higher business rates tax band and slightly increasing the rates paid by the remaining large properties, such as office blocks and other major commercial buildings.
Helen Dickinson, BRC chief executive, said: “Britain’s largest shops are magnets, pulling people into high streets, shopping centres and retail parks, supporting thousands of surrounding cafes, restaurants and smaller and independent shops. After years of rising costs, far too many stores have disappeared – leaving behind empty shells that once thrived at the heart of our communities.
“The Chancellor can back families, jobs and high streets this Autumn, by excluding large shops from the new higher business rates tax band. This would not cost the Exchequer a penny, yet would help secure the future of 400 retail stores, and the communities they support, right across the country. But failure to act risks shuttering hundreds more stores, costing jobs, communities and the economy far more in the long run.”
