Rates hike petition: Impact on Hackney is ‘unjustifiable’ says Mayor

Meg Hillier MP, Len Maloney, Philip Glanville handing in the rates petition at 10 Downing Street (Image: hackney council)

If the current proposals are not changed, more than 370 businesses in Hackney will face a rise of between £10,000 and £100,000 because of a revaluation based on property prices – which have more than doubled in parts of London.

The petition wants the government to increase the rates relief for small businesses and for the introduction of a new relief system for medium businesses.

It is also calling for London’s business rates to be set by City Hall to “better suit the challenges of the capital”.

Hackney Mayor Philip Glanville was joined today by MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch Meg Hillier and Len Maloney whose Haggerston based business JC Motors will be severely impacted by the rate increase.

Mayor Philip Glanville said: “The sheer severity of the impact on areas like Hackney is unjustifiable if you have any care for the social, cultural or economic fabric of its communities.

“As these thousands of signatures attest, it is simply not right that thousands of businesses could be priced out of their communities - regardless of their history, what they sell, who they serve - simply by virtue of their postcode, just because the bricks and mortar around them has doubled in price.

“Currently thriving high streets and business clusters across London are at real risk of sliding into stagnation, forcing relocation instead of expansion, and replacing job creation with unemployment and empty buildings.”

Meg Hillier added: “This is the biggest onslaught on small businesses that I have seen in my lifetime.

“Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities - but hundreds of Hackney’s small and independent shops will be put at risk of closure by the government’s plans to hike business rates.”