Andrew Rosindell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2015-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to support market towns.

Penny Mordaunt

The Government is fully committed to helping communities respond to the structural changes underway in our town centres. Since 2010, we have helped create over 360 town teams, including 27 Portas Pilots. We have funded successful initiatives such as ‘Love your Local Market’ and the Great British High Street Portal and awards. We have strengthened the role of Business Improvement Districts, introduced new permitted development rights and are tackling aggressive parking enforcement.

In addition, approximately 600,000 businesses are benefitting from Small Business Rate Relief with approximately 400,000 paying no rates at all.

We announced at the 2014 Autumn Statement an extra £650 million of support for 2015-16 business rates bills in England, bringing the total support from 2013 and 2014 Autumn Statement measures to £1.4 billion in 2015-16. That includes amongst other things:

• doubling Small Business Rate Relief for a further year (2015-16);
• increasing the temporary discount for shops, pubs and restaurants with rateable values below £50,000 from £1,000 to £1,500 for 2015-16.

Over half of the £1.4 billion package will go to retail.