Friday 20 March 2015

Relating retail business rates to sales performance - the unintended pay-off?

Over at The Telegraph, Graham Ruddick develops some good reasons for how local councils’ discretionary expenditure of retail business rates could transform the high street in terms of positive use of the funds at local level.

However, basing rates on sales achievement could result in even more positive benefits for the High Street...  By relating the business-rate to a retailer’s sales, rather than an out-of-date value of the property, the retailer could focus on driving business rather than covering overheads.

Even more importantly, the council could actually play an active role in helping business succeed…

As a stakeholder, the focus of the council could change, giving councillors a reason to make pro-active moves to help create an environment that meets the needs of all parties in the High Street.

This could bring a whole new purpose to maintaining building fabric, level and quality of domestic and retail occupancy, access and parking facilities, cleansing and lighting, and even some accountability…

These moves would eventually result in higher retail property values, but the council having a pro-active stake in thriving businesses, combined with the power to spend locally at their discretion, could get everyone there faster… 


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