Reply To: Urgent calls to end inconsistencies in business rate relief

[John Price]

We’re a car and motorcycle retail tyre outlet which also carries out mechanical services. Our premises were categorised as “warehouse” which meant no relief. I emailed my local council (Gloucester City Council) and explained that we were retail based – customers had to come to us and pay for our services over the counter – and after a couple of days they phoned back to say that they would re-classify us so that we could have the rates relief and the government grant. The result was that we’ve now received a £25k grant and a 100% discount on our business rates, saving us a futher £17.5k a year.
I urge any business in the same situation to phone their local council’s business rates department. in my experience, these people want to help.