The post you are reporting:
Hold on a second lets make a few points clear here.
Overall the business rates are set to fall 5% in Dover District. That said, that is an overall percentage and some businesses will face significant increases and others reductions, it is not evenly spread.
Where there are large increases (or reductions) the increase is phased in and it does not just increase immediately to the full whack.
There is a fund of £400,000 available from DDC and any business that can show they are in difficulty due to the impact of the recession can apply for support. No business has been turned down though I know of one who's accountant has not done his bit to help the grant go through. Overall though DDC have done their best to make the application easy and the information needed can be supplied by any well run business.
If members of the Dover District Chamber of Commerce want help over this then they should contact the Chamber (01304 824955). If a business is not a member of the Chamber then perhaps you should join, its not expensive and dues can be paid monthly if needed, contact the same phone number. Incidentally, the Chamber is there to help and is looking to extend its operations in Dover Town Centre as soon as possible but there are some complex funding and location issues being discussed.
As far as the rating system itself is concerned, I would certainly agree it is wrong but it is beyond the powers of the Councils to change that. The rate is set by Government and the valuations set by the Valuation Office, a Government Department and are based on rentals, set every 5 years. The money gets collected by the Council and sent to the Government who send back to Dover a small proportion of what is collected here. This is, overall, a most undesirable situation, certainly for those of us who want local Government to be truly local.
As Chairman of the Chamber I will certainly be adding my voice to those wanting real localism with a change to the funding of local authorities and locally set business rates collected and spent locally.