Gedling Borough Council responds after claims it handed back £29k of business rates relief fund back to government

Gedling Borough Council has responded to claims made yesterday that it handed back £29k set aside for a business rates relief fund back to the government.

The authority were, unfairly, not given the opportunity to respond after the figures were shared by chartered surveyors Bankier Sloan, which were published in Gedling Eye yesterday.

The firm’s figures showed Gedling Borough Council received £316,543 from the government and returned £29,471, which is 9.31 percent

The fund was created when the Government changed the way business rates are calculated, it set aside a pot of money to help firms whose rates had been severely adversely affected.

Leader of Gedling Borough Council, Councillor John Clarke said: “In 2017, central government granted the council money to help businesses affected by large increases in their rates bills as a result of a revaluation. We used the money to award discretionary relief to every single business in the borough who met the scheme’s criteria.

“We took great care to make sure that businesses received the maximum relief to which they were entitled.  

“The nature of the relief meant that if any business moved out after April 2017, they would no longer be entitled to relief so we had to return any underpayments to central government, the council was not allowed to keep it.

“Gedling Borough Council supports local businesses. We provide free parking in our town centres, have invested in our high streets and we offer advice to small and medium businesses to drive growth in the borough. “

He added: “What is really needed is for the Government to get on with the long-overdue overhaul of the business rates system they’ve been promising, this would allow councils to retain more of the business rates they work so hard to collect so they can provide more support to those local businesses that need it.”