Shake-up of unfair rates is delayed as high streets suffer
A REVIEW of business rates has been delayed again despite warnings the high street is on the “edge of the abyss”.
The Treasury yesterday confirmed its final report on a shake-up of the property tax on firms will not be published until the autumn.
Officials put the blame on “ongoing and wide-ranging impacts of the pandemic and economic uncertainty”.
The move prompted calls for Chancellor Rishi Sunak to extend a business rates holiday for thousands for firms hit by the coronavirus crisis.
The boss of fashion chain Next has called for a 35 per cent cut for the high street.
Lord Simon Wolfson said the current system was “unfair” to under-pressure bricks and mortar retailers.
It came as figures revealed the impact the third national lockdown is having on nonessential stores forced to close. The amount of goods sold tumbled 8.2 per cent in January, said the Office for National Statistics. The figure was more than three times worse than the 2.5 per cent predicted.
Ayush Ansal, chief investment officer at the hedge fund Crimson Black Capital, said: “The third national lockdown has taken the UK high street to the edge of the abyss. “For the average British retailer, the reopening of the economy as a result of the mass vaccination programme cannot come soon enough.”
Last month’s sharp fall was not as bad as that seen in the first national lockdown in England last year.
However, online trade continued to boom, with its proportion of all retail sales at a record high of more than 35 per cent, up from 19 per cent a year ago.
Helen Dickinson, boss of the British Retail Consortium, said: “If Government wants to avoid further administrations of viable businesses, it must provide those firms which have been hardest hit by the pandemic with the necessary support.
“This means extending the moratorium on aggressive debt enforcement, removing EU state aid caps on support grants and providing targeted business rates support to those companies worst affected by the pandemic.”