Coronavirus: ‘Council continuing to tax businesses despite Government respite’, Littlehampton trader claims

On Monday, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the country to avoid unnecessary travel and stop non-essential contact with others in an effort to slow the spread of the disease, which has 10 confirmed cases in West Sussex and almost 2,000 nationally at the time of print.

This included avoiding pubs and bars, throwing small businesses into limbo.

On Tuesday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced he would be freezing business rates to all firms in the hospitality sector for a year and funding grants of between £10,000 and £25,000 for small businesses.

Simon Vickers is chairman of the Littlehampton Traders Partnership. He claimed Arun District Council was still taking payment of business rates from April 1, with the view of refunding businesses later when the decision was passed into law – a move he branded as ‘disgraceful’.

He said: “Talk about kicking people when they are down.”

In response, Arun said it was ‘waiting for confirmation as to when the legislation will be in place to support and action’ following the Chancellor’s announcement.

A later statement, which did not seem to address the Chancellor’s Tuesday announcement, said: “On 19 December 2019, the Government announced that business retail relief would increase from 33 per cent to 50 per cent.

“The council took steps to bill 2020/2021 in accordance with this announcement. This was superseded by the March 2020 budget when the discount was increased to 100 per cent for businesses with a rateable value between £12k to £51k.

“This now requires the council to re-bill businesses based on the 100 per cent relief and not collect the rates that were billed in accordance with the December 2019 announcement.”

Dr James Walsh, leader of Arun District Council, also reacted to the social avoidance strategy.

He said: “These are sensible precautions, drawing on the experience of countries who are ahead of us in the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19.

“They are designed to slow the spread of the disease so that the NHS is not overwhelmed in these early, still winter, weeks.

“Support for businesses can and must come from central Government, as local Government just does not have the resources locally. There is no need for panic, and certainly not panic buying at supermarkets, but a sensible approach to avoiding close contact, and self isolating if exhibiting a fever and a new dry cough.”