Shop Local campaign: Sign our petition

We are joining forces with hundreds of our sister Johnston Press titles as well as the British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA) to demand that business rates are frozen immediately and an urgent review of the system is conducted.

This week we are asking you the reader to sign our online petition which urges the Government to think again about an unfair tax which has been increased by nearly £700m in the past three years, leaving traders with the highest property tax bills in Europe.

Westminster’s Business Innovation and Rates Committee has looked at the issue of business rates and reported its findings in March, describing the business rates system as not fit for purpose and in need of reform.

The committee called for a wholesale review including whether retail taxes should be based on sales rather than the rateable value of a property; whether retail needs its own system of business taxation; and how frequently revaluations should take place. In the interim, the committee called for a six months business rates amnesty for businesses occupying empty properties.

The Government had undertaken to review rates was due to carry out a revaluation in 2015 but this has been put back to 2017 and beyond but has made no serious or firm commitment to a fundamental review of this damaging tax.

This week the Reporter Series is calling for readers to get behind our Shop Local campaign, which calls upon the Government to do the right things for our small, independent traders.

Ashley Highfield, CEO of Johnston Press, said: “Supporting communities - and the small businesses within those communities - is at the heart of what we do. We pride ourselves on the long-standing relationships we have in so many cities, towns, villages and hamlets where we are the trusted provider of local news and information services.

“Small businesses are the lifeblood of their communities and this campaign is aimed at helping them to survive in an ever more challenging environment. We support any initiative aimed at ensuring a healthy future for the small businesses that are so important to our local audiences.”

The campaign has received the backing of BIRA which is currently lobbying Government and politicians from other parties in a bid to make the process fairer.

A BIRA spokesma said: “Business rates were designed for the retail world of 1990, but they need to work with for the realities of today and be made fit for 2020. Shops in towns pay several times per square foot what other ratepayers pay in other locations and the disadvantage is hampering small shops in their fight for survival.”

He added: “This needs too be put right permanently, not tinkered with as the government has done with a series of short term measures designed to stifle calls for fundamental, long term change.”

The Government says that it delayed the review of the of business rates as a review next year would have caused an estimated 800,000 businesses to “miss out.”

Penny Mordaunt, the High Street minister, said: “Looking forward, our business rates review will look at improving the longer-term administration involved in the rates so the system is simple, fair and predictable for ratepayers.”

Sign the petition here and share it with your friends and family to help spread the word.