Environment Monday - Why business rates needs reforming to recognise environmental benefit

An eco friendly business

Business rates is a local tax (allegedly). You fill in a form sent to you by the Valuation Office and you pay your rates according to the most complicated formula known to man. What do you get as a business for your pennies? Well you don't get your bins collected. You have to sign up with a commercial service to do that. If like us, you are in a private estate, you don't get street lighting. If like us you pay about £20,000 a year for the privelige, you do feel rather robbed. We provide training and work experience to young people from local schools. We provide equipment and facilities to local charities etc at reduced and sometimes free rates. We have a purpose build eco friendly building with solar panels to generate electricity. All the mess we create from customers buying snacks etc, is kept on site and we pay for it to be recycled. In short, we've done everything we can to be as responsible as possible. Our estate has planted dozens of trees etc on site over the years, which we have contributed to. We keep the site free of graffiti and mess.

But none of these things are considered when the rates bill arrives. We are just one of any number of businesses in Mill Hill, all feeling badly stung when they see the huge hike in costs when the bills arrive today. I fully accept that as a business we have to pay taxes, but I find it galling that we are subsidising other businesses that give nothing back to the local community. If you walk down the Broadway, you will find all manner of litter and other detritus in the street. Fast food outlets are particularly bad for this, I'd estimate in the Broadway that five outlets contribute to 75% of the litter. Yet their rates will be pound for pound the same as other businesses. Have a look at the number of dog ends outside the bookies? Yet, us, in a privately managed estate has no rebate for sparing the public purse.

As for energy, we do everything possible to ensure that we have the smallest carbon footprint possible. Do the rates reward us for this? Did they encourage us to go green? Not at all. The fact that we paid for trees to be planted to help mitigate the pollution from the M1 Motorway? Again, not a bean.

I don't believe that it is the job of companies like us, to in effect subsides other, less eco conscious businesses. We are a local business who's shareholders and stakeholders live in Mill Hill. If we keep the area nice, we benefits. The shareholders of the big companies that are responsible for much of the mess have no reason and no incentive to respect the environment. I've long believed that companies that put something back should be encouraged and those that simply mess things up should pay more.

If a business creates mess and litter, then they should pay to clean it up. If a business doesn't take young people on work experience, then surely they are not contributing to the local community and should pay more. If a business has not invested in green energy, surely this should be recognised. If a business plants trees and shrubs locally, then surely they are contributing to the local environment. You may say that High St business have nowhere to plant outside their business? Well start a scheme so they can plant verges and parks in the locality.

A better quality of life for residents will result in less costs for councils and the NHS. It is called an investment and if firms can be encouraged to participate, then we will all benefit. Sadly in a capitalist society, it is only small, local businesses that ever do it off their own back. Any scheme should be cash neutral to the councils, so that firms that are not contributing to their local society are funding rates cuts to those that are. This may seem controversial but when I walk down the street and see squalor, filth and decay, it is clear that something needs to be done. Having received a whole stack of rates bills this morning, which my business gets nothing at all in return for, I can only think something is badly wrong with the way we tax business. I'm not looking for a hand out, just to see the Govt and Councils doing something to encourage other businesses to do what we've been doing for years