FI16528
Request
For the financial years 2023-24, 2024-25, and 2025-26 (where available), please provide:
1. A list of businesses in your local authority that received rural rates relief in each year
2. The individual rateable values of these businesses in that year
3. The category of each eligible business (general store, food shop, post office, public house, or petrol station)
4. If possible, also provide the number of businesses whose rateable values were increased between financial years so that they exceeded the threshold of eligibility for business rates relief
If this would exceed the cost limit, or be otherwise impossible to release under the Act, please instead provide the following:
1. The number of businesses that received rural rates relief in each specified year
2. A breakdown of how many of these businesses were general stores, food shops, post offices, public houses, or petrol stations
3. The number of businesses that became ineligible for RRR because their rateable value had risen above the threshold of eligibility
Response
Information regarding specific businesses that have received rural rate relief is part of the Council’s business rates data is exempt from disclosure (the first four questions of your request). This follows the decision of First Tier Tribunal General Regulatory Chamber (Information Rights) under reference EA/2018/0033 which confirms that information regarding business rate accounts engages Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs that in disclosing the information. The decision referred to can be found at http://informationrights.decisions.tribunals.gov.uk/DBFiles/Decision/i2557/Westminster%20City%20Council%20EA-2018-0033%20(04.12.19).pdf. For the reasons detailed in the Tribunal’s decision, this information is not available for disclosure.
The Council is however, able to provide the answers to the final three questions of your request, as follows:
1. As follows:
2023/24 7
2024/25 6
2025/26 6
2. As follows:
|
|
Public House
|
Shop
|
Garage/Petrol Station
|
|
2023/24
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
|
2024/25
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
|
2025/26
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
3. Zero. The loss of RRR for the public house in 2024 was due to the property becoming vacant, not due to the RV increasing.