Forecourt and other convenience store operators are being urged to contact their members of parliament ahead of the Autumn Budget on October 30, raising concerns over business rates.
The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) is asking retailers to press for government action on three points:
- Reducing RHL (retail, hospitality and leisure) multipliers to 20p less than standard and small-business multipliers to offset cost pressures being felt by the industry.
- Indexing small business rate relief thresholds to better reflect increasing rateable values, thereby ensuring that inflation doesn’t see them lose support.
- Expand and extend improvement relief from one year to three, and include plant and machinery, and security systems in this relief, thereby encouraging investment in store safety and energy efficiency.
The ACS’ chief executive, James Lowman, says that many convenience stores are “facing increases in their rates bills”, which is putting a “massive strain” on retailers, leading to increased costs despite the “tough trading environment”.
Lowman adds that retailers should “write to their local MP to highlight the issues that their businesses are facing and to ask them to support our calls for urgent action to create a fairer system”.
The ACS has a template letter on its website that retailers can adapt and send to their MP.
