'It's really unfair on hardworking businesses' - Shropshire business champion's call to double business rates on empty shops

Listed buildings currently benefit from "extended rate relief", where landlords pay no business rates at all on empty shops units until they are re-occupied - which leaves some building owners with limited incentives to re-let them.

Sally Themans, who runs Bridgnorth business consultancy firm Good2Great, believes business rates should be charged up to double for empty units, as part of measures to bring vacant shops back into use.

The call comes in the wake of an event held in Market Drayton this week which brought together councils, community groups, businesses and town centre managers from across the region to discuss the issue.

"At the moment there's little incentive for landlords to move them(vacant properties}. They've got them on the balance sheet valued at a certain amount, they're not having to pay businesses rates. It's a huge deal," she said.

"If you're a big pension fund sitting on a listed building in a town like Wellington or Shrewsbury no-one's breathing down your neck and it's not losing you money. There needs to be bigger incentive to sort this out and stimulate movement and engagement from landlords, and that needs to come from Government.

"It's a glitch in the system and it should change. Holiday rental properties are now getting charged double council tax, retail properties - if they're consistently empty and there's been no effort to market them then they should be forced to pay double.

"It's really unfair to businesses who are working hard and paying tax and adding services and goods to a town centre."

Around one in seven shops in the UK is currently empty, with vacancy rates of around 17 per cent in the West Midlands set against a national average of 13.5%. 

Some Shropshire towns fare signficantly better than the national average however, with Wellington's vacancy rate now down to 4%. 

Last year, the UK Government published new guidance on a scheme known as High Street Rental Auctions, where leaseholds to shops which have been vacant for more than a year are seized by the local authority and auctioned off to businesses in a bid to get them re-occupied. 

A pilot has been launched in some local areas, with around a dozen local authorities actively participating in the scheme.

"High streets are the beating heart of our communities, but across the country too many are now a shadow of their former selves," said Alex Norris MP,  Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Growth and Building Safety, at the rollout of the guidance in December.

"Under this scheme local leaders will be empowered to take action where landlords have not taken sufficient steps to rent property, auctioning off leases on premises that have been vacant for more than a year – and granting local businesses and community groups the ‘right to rent’ empty commercial lots at market prices.

"This will play a critical role in spurring regeneration, revival and renewal on a local level – and will be part of a package of measures we are deploying to put high streets and town centres back on their feet.

"We know this will take time and effort to achieve and we are under no illusions about the scale of the task we face."