BedfordBID has welcomed measures in the 2014 Autumn Statement to extend rate relief for High Street businesses.
BedfordBID represents more than 500 business which pay a levy into a pot to promote the town centre. That money stays in the town under the control of those same levy-payers.
Business rates head largely in the direction of Central Government and are then reallocated to councils under various headings determined by Westminster.
Chancellor George Osborne announced that he would be boosting support for small businesses by extending the doubling of Small Business Rate Relief and the 2% cap on the RPI annual increase to April 2016.
This comes at a time when business rates have become widely acknowledged as a damaging curb on the profitability of businesses, negatively affecting their investment decisions.
BedfordBID is supporting calls for further action to ensure that cuts to high street businesses’ operating costs are permanent and UK wide. This will help grow jobs and sustain local and regional economic regeneration thus strengthening the UK’s economic outlook.
BedfordBID is an active member of the ATCM who are now the largest organisation of its kind in Europe and has evolved into an influential voice for the town and city management community, as well as being widely respected authority on policy.
It is in partnership with the ATCM that BedfordBID is also continuing to lobby support from the Government on these issues and welcomes a full-scale review of the current business rates model as intimated by the Chancellor.
The local BUSINESS RATES taxation team can be contacted on
01234 718079
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