Hospitality sector ‘faces £113m business rates hike next April’

UKHospitality (UKH) is warning that a large part of the UK economy, including hotels, pubs, restaurants, nightclubs and cafes, face a £113m business rates bombshell.

The inflation figures are used to set the annual increase in business rates, and analysis by UKH shows that “thousands of businesses” will be hit by rises totalling a “£113m bombshell”.

According to the group hospitality businesses and the “millions of jobs it supports” are in “urgent need of help” from the chancellor in this month’s budget, and that those hospitality are “increasingly struggling from the effects of a disastrous rates revaluation”.

CEO Kate Nicholls, said: “At a time when consumer confidence is dipping, as revealed today, now is not the time to pile additional costs on a sector that will result in businesses closing their doors, lost jobs and higher-prices for hard-pressed consumers.

“Business rates is an outdated part of our tax system and UK business urgently requires reform. We call on the chancellor to announce a freeze in the budget and introduce a new digital tax to slash the business rates burden on hospitality from April 2020.”