Jonathan Refoy

ASDA

ASDA is dedicated to helping our customers through this difficult economic period and our retail development programme is continuing to invest in local communities and regenerate towns and cities across the UK. But just as things have become more difficult economically, the government has imposed an ill-timed tax on empty properties which has had a number of unintended consequences and can only hinder retailers' ability to regenerate brownfield sites. Anything that the government can do to alleviate this added burden, and help us work with local communities to get through this difficult time, would be welcome.

John Cridland

Deputy Director General, CBI

Extra taxes on empty buildings are damaging business. This website forces government to confront this fact.

When firms are forced to cut back in a recession, they need encouragement, not taxes on their empty buildings.

Reintroducing the previous reliefs would help business deal with the recession. Rates on empty property have forced companies to cut staff, and can make the difference between surviving the downturn and going to the wall.

Nick Brown

Government Chief Whip, quoted in The Times (20 Nov 2008)

We are in a position where people are pulling buildings down, which is a destructive consequence of this, and the way to avert it is to grant relief

Phil Wilson

Labour MP for Sedgefield

It is fundamentally unfair that firms get taxed on these properties when they're trying to bring new jobs and new investment into these areas.

Francis Salway

Land Securities

Empty rates are an abuse of the principle that rates are a tax for the use of local services.

Empty rates will bring more demolition and less regeneration.

The basic principle of rates is that they are a local tax for the use of local services. If a building is empty, then the principle of the tax falls away.

Paul Edwards

Legal & General

The impact of void rates will have a negative impact on rental growth as landlords will not want to absorb this cost on vacant property. My fund was set up with a view that we were to carry out some development to enhance returns. Given the general economic downturn, it would be unfair to say that this tax is the principle cause of less speculative development taking place, but it certainly hasn't helped, and will hold back speculative development once the economy improves. Valuations are lower as valuers are reflecting void costs including rates in their valuations, and, as we are about to enter a perceived occupier downturn, valuers are starting to increase preletting voids. Investors are not only affected by this but also by lower income returns on most funds, resulting in lower distributions.

James Ramsbotham

North East Chamber of Commerce

The current economic situation is unprecedented and the North East Chambers of Commerce has been left in no doubt in feedback from members that empty property rates pose an immediate threat to the survival of many businesses throughout our region. Furthermore, empty property rates are a barrier to investment and a burden to the welfare of our region’s business property market. There is an increasing consensus that this legislation will be damaging for the market throughout the UK, and also that the damage will be acutely felt within the North East where the margin between the cost of developing business premises and the profits made by letting them is lower than the national average.

Empty property rates are compounding an already difficult situation. In the Pre-Budget Report the Chancellor announced that all businesses with a rateable value of under £15,000 would be temporarily exempt from empty property rates for one year. This measure was supposed to help 70% of businesses, whereas in fact the majority of rateable properties helped by this measure are public toilets, cash machines, and advertisement hoardings.

NECC calls for an immediate reintroduction of the pre-2008 system of empty property rate relief in order to stem the damage this tax is causing to businesses.

David Flood

Rateable Value Limited

Most people involved in the property industry, myself included, would agree that for the good of the country as a whole, empty property relief should be reinstated. I also think that the void period before empty rates are charged should be extended across all sectors of commercial property to twelve months, - in line with the findings of the RICS/LSH report into the effects of empty rates. The government should do what it continues to state is its intention, namely to is support British businesses. The true test of this will come when the review of rateable values is announced this autumn for the 2010 revaluation. Rather than the tax increases that are widely expected, the government should use it’s common sense, change the basis of the revaluation from the 1st April 2008, and reduce rateable values. This would show that they are able to react to the current exceptional market conditions and provide a tangible and meaningful boost to all British businesses.

If you wish to support David’s petition please go to http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/extendEPRvoid/

Malcolm Naish

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership

There are few situations where commercially motivated landlords would want to keep a building vacant deliberately, and, given the credit crunch and pressure on tenants, this is putting additional extra pressure on property owners at a bad time in the market.