rates for woodland?

[roglog]

Had a call from my local council requesting a site visit to calculate my business rates. I have a open area of hard standing and a barn that is unused due to a council dispute which is ongoing!

Im mainly doing logs and have lots of timber, some split and stacked and some waiting to be processed.

Anyone else had this? Any ideas on what the rates are?

[openspaceman]

Had a call from my local council requesting a site visit to calculate my business rates. I have a open area of hard standing and a barn that is unused due to a council dispute which is ongoing!

Im mainly doing logs and have lots of timber, some split and stacked and some waiting to be processed.

Anyone else had this? Any ideas on what the rates are?

 

Notionally about 40% of the rateable value which itself is supposed to be calculated on the open market rent but if it's in dispute and is still agricultural then no rates.

 

There is a rate holiday for small businesses with under 65m2 in my area but I'm unsure this is universal.

[Peasgood]

If you pay rates on it, does it then become a "brownfield" site?

[openspaceman]

If you pay rates on it, does it then become a "brownfield" site?

 

I think you mean a previously developed site and anything with a building is that.

[Peasgood]

What I was really getting at is that by paying rates it obviously becomes a business site.

Does this not make it easier to get planning for sheds and possibly house(s) at some point in the future?

This is a question rather than a statement.

 

 

You may begrudge paying the rates now but it may be very beneficial in the long term.

[gensetsteve]

Had a call from my local council requesting a site visit to calculate my business rates. I have a open area of hard standing and a barn that is unused due to a council dispute which is ongoing!

Im mainly doing logs and have lots of timber, some split and stacked and some waiting to be processed.

Anyone else had this? Any ideas on what the rates are?

 

You have to earn a good wage to pay rates on a small business. Alot of small businesses dont relies that they can ask for excemption due to low profits. Since the greedy pigs brought the country to its knees its time the working classes got something back.

[openspaceman]

What I was really getting at is that by paying rates it obviously becomes a business site.

Does this not make it easier to get planning for sheds and possibly house(s) at some point in the future?

 

It shouldn't make any difference but in practice it may.

 

VOA are the people that decide if a premises is rateable but since April the local LA gets to keep a proportion of the business rate, this has made my LA very amenable to large business schemes in the face of green belt rules.. Paying rates may be evidence of change of use but it will need ten years to pass for entitlement to that use.

 

Planning is a separate issue and if the building already exists, in good condition, and redundant they must allow a change of use. There is a hierarchy of uses which has to be considered.

 

Since April there has also been a relaxation of how use may be changed between categories unless the LA applied for an exemption. This was a dangerous change in a crowded country IMO.

 

The chief means of changes occurring under the planning system is that planning departments have retained all their powers but their budgets cut so badly that many abuses which would previously been enforced now get through the net.

[renewablejohn]

I would be very wary of any attempt to put business rates on your set up. Have a word with a land agent and try and keep the site as agriculture and forestry as permitted development especially in green belt is easier.