Issue details

To consider changes to the Council’s Business Rate Discretionary Relief Policy to provide assistance to businesses.

In the March 2017 budget, the Government announced the following measures to assist businesses following the revaluation of all Non-Domestic Properties from 1 April 2017:

• An additional £300m would be made available to Councils to support businesses that had suffered the largest increases in their Business Rate Bills.  Fareham will receive £311,000 of this funding over a 4-year period

• A discount of £1,000 would be made available to public houses with Rateable Values up to £100,000.

• Additional funding will be made available to limit the increase in Business Rates following the loss of Small Business Rate Relief due to the revaluation.

This Council already has an established policy for granting Discretionary Rate Relief, but the changes requested by Government, will fall outside the policy.  This report seeks to vary the local policy in order to incorporate the proposed changes.

The Government will fully reimburse local authorities for the local share of the discretionary relief granted.