Charlotte West

A YOUNG businesswoman has been left confused as to why her business rates have more than doubled – a situation which is forcing her to shut up shop.

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Charlotte West, 24, opened Millie childrenswear shop in the Buttermarket in Bury St Edmunds in April last year, but it is due to close imminently after the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) increased her business rates from £1,200 to £2,500 a month.

She said the explanation she had been given by the VOA was that the premises is larger than the information they had. But she said she had actually been expecting her rates to go down following the visit by the VOA agent as they were taken from 2008, before the economic dip.

She said if it was not for the increase in her business rates – which took effect in autumn last year – her shop would stay open, but also spoke of other increases, such as water and electricity.

She said: “I just thought with everything going up I don’t have enough custom to support how much everything is going up by. I could carry on, but it means I wouldn’t make any money so I’m doing the sound thing and shutting now before anything maybe went too far over my head.”

Millie is Mrs West’s first business. She said trade had been “fairly good,” adding that she had a loyal customer base, with people travelling from across East Anglia for the designer childrenswear.

She said she was “horrified” when she heard of the increase and felt angry and upset, but was now much more relaxed and positive about everything as she had had time to think about things over the past few months.

“Since what’s happened to me it’s been a worry for other small business owners in the area,” she said.

Mrs West believes she is paying more for her business rates than others in the Buttermarket, but she said she is not appealing the increase as she has taken the decision to close her shop.

She said she is hoping to
continue selling clothing through her website www.milliesclothing.co.uk

Mark Cordell, chief executive of town centre business improvement group Bid4Bury, said: “The Government on the one hand engage Mary Portas [who carried out a review into the future of our high streets]...One of Mary Portas’ issues is rates and in another part of the Government the VOA is going round putting rates up. It just seems to me a total lack of joined up thinking.”

The VOA had not provided a comment by the time the East Anglian Daily Times went to press, but a spokesman said
business rates were based on the size of the premises and its location.

Business rates had been cited as a factor in the closing of Monty’s Cakes, another independent business in the Buttermarket, by one of its owners.