£27k business rates rise 'catastrophic'

A family-run campsite's business rates bill has increased by a "catastrophic" 2,700%.

Jules Sayer owns the Petruth Paddocks campsite in Cheddar, Somerset, where the site's annual bill has increased from £1,070 to £28,820.

Sayer said the new bill had caused him "untold worry", adding: "What happens next? I haven't got that [kind of money] sat around, most businesses don't - they budget at the start of the financial year, not the end of it."

Answering a question about the situation in the House of Commons, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds MP said the "obviously dramatic figures" may "have happened through revaluation" and said he would put Sayer's local MP in touch with the Treasury.

"It could be £10 or £100," Sayer said.

"It's not the amount of money, it's the principle of it. To impose that on a business with no notice whatsoever, it's just wrong, it's ethically wrong."

Business rates are set by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and are collected by councils on behalf of the Treasury.

The government decides on an annual basis how much of the funding can be retained by local authorities to pay for public services, such as fixing potholes or providing social care for vulnerable adults.

Sayer said he expected a rise in business rates this year and had budgeted £10,000, which he was "prepared" to pay to acknowledge the fact his campsite had grown.

But the arrival of the new bill on his doorstep was unexpected and he contacted his MP Tessa Munt.

Munt raised the campsite's plight in the House of Commons on 15 October, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reports.

She said: "Its [Petruth Paddocks'] business rates liability this year has increased by almost 2,700%, from £1,070 per annum to £28,820 per annum, with no meaningful warning and no chance to plan for this catastrophic hike.

"Will a Treasury minister or the secretary of state meet me to discuss what can be done in rural Somerset, where so many businesses depend on hospitality and tourism? They really cannot take this kind of kicking."

Reynolds responded: "Those are obviously dramatic figures – I assume that they have happened through revaluation.

"I will endeavour to get the honourable lady in contact perhaps with the Treasury, rather than this department, to support her constituency."

A HM Treasury spokesperson told BBC Somerset: "We're reforming the business rates system and we have introduced a £4.3bn support package to protect against ratepayers seeing large overnight increases in bills as a result of the 2026 revaluation".

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