---

Non-Domestic Rates

Answer

Details of the number of businesses claiming business rate reliefs as at 31 December 2007 and 31 December 2008 in Penwith district council, Cornwall and England are shown in the following table.

Number of hereditaments in receipt of business rate relief as at 31 December 2007
	Penwith	Cornwall	England
Mandatory relief	509	3,075	275,159
of which:
Rural rate relief	55	346	6,603
Empty property relief	241	1,518	186,370
Discretionary relief	206	1,432	48,767
of which:
Rural rate relief	24	179	3,515

Number of hereditaments in receipt of business rate relief as at 31 December 2008
	Cornwall	England
Mandatory relief	3,452	236,636
of which:
Rural rate relief	350	6,308
Empty property relief	1,671	147,923
Discretionary relief	1,618	49,909
of which:
Rural rate relief	171	3,565

Data for 2007 and 2008 are not strictly comparable as the rules governing empty property rate relief were changed by the Ratings (Empty Properties) Act 2007 and further subsequent changes.Data as at 31 December 2008 are in respect of authorities that would be in existence from 1 April 2009. As part of the reorganisation of the local authorities Penwith DC became part of the Cornwall unitary authority.Data for hardship relief and small business rate relief in these years are not available.Data are not available at a constituency level and data for earlier years were not collected.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

496 c1663-4W; 288203

Session

2008-09

Subjects

Business rates

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk