LONG-AWAITED RATES REVIEW ‘WILL HELP HARD-PRESSED TRADERS’
THE long awaited rates review for business premises in the town has been welcomed by Cllr Mark Dearey, who runs the Spirit Store public house on George’s Quay.
The Green Party councillor said that the review ‘will definitely help’ hard pressed town centre traders.
He anticipated that, similar to what has happened in other counties, ‘around 60 per cent will end up paying less and 40 per cent will pay more.’
‘It will probably have a minor impact on most businesses. I don’t think they will be cracking open the champagne or losing sleep either way.’
The review is based on a new system whereby it is set on the actual value of the property and will ‘reflect the way which retail has shifted out from the town centre.’
He described the new system as ‘ very helpful and clear which will help businesspeople understand how the rate is set.’
‘It is based on the property sales value put on the property by the valuation office and will be reviewed every give years unlike the current system were there hadn’t been a review for thirty or forty years.’
‘It marks a very, very significant improvement for the system,’ he said.
He welcomed the inclusion of a provision to take turnover into consideration for certain businesses such as petrol stations and public houses/
‘Pubs have lost so much value in recent years and a lot of them are unsellable,’ he noted.
The rates apply to all commercial premises and everyone who owns one must pay even if it is empty.
‘ There is now only a 50 per cent rebate for owners of vacant premises and this will be a very heavy burden on people who are left with a premises which they can’t let.’
He revealed that he intended tabling a motion for the November meeting of Louth County Council for the local authority to begin taking Compulsory Purchase Orders on properties which are derelict and lying idle.
Citing the north end of town as an area which is suffering from dereliction, he said the Council should use the expertise it had acquired through using the CPO process to acquire vacant houses to take an innovative approach to tackling the blight of empty commercial premises.
He felt that there were a number of vacant premises in the town centre which could be transformed into badly needed student accommodation or developed into small units for digital enterprise, for example.
‘A lot of these properties will never become commercial or retail outlets again - they have been lying idle for ten years or more and have been bought and sold a number of occasions. The owners will also get a rates bill but if they don’t do anything with the building, they will get a 50 per cent rebate.’