Johnston Press boss Ashley Highfield has claimed its campaign to get the government to review the business rates system has influenced the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement.
George Osborne announced a review of the system in his Commons statement yesterday, athough he ignored calls by JP to freeze the rate while the procedure took place.
JP launched the company-wide campaign across its newspaper portfolio less than two months ago, and 5,000 people signed a petition against what it describes as an “unfair tax”.
The campaign, run with the backing of the the British Independent Retailers Association, has received publicity from its titles across the country.
Mr Osborne, pictured above, announced that while the rate has not been frozen during the review process, small retail businesses will see the amount of discount they are entitled to rise 50 per cent to £1,500.
The study is scheduled to be completed by the time of the 2016 Budget.
Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield said: “We very much welcome the decision today to review the business rates paid in the high street.
“There’s a long way still to go but this is definitely a step in the right direction and we remain committed to supporting small business across the country and helping to safeguard their future.
“We want to thank all those who signed our petition and played their part in getting this on the Chancellor’s agenda.”
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Reality check needed Mr H. Only 5000 people signed petition after a company wide campaign. So who cared?
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You got me there Ashley
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George, I’ve told you before. Stop wasting public finances and get back to work.
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Osborne must have had kittens when he’d heard the Hartlepool Mail was involved.
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It’s good that Ashley wants to safeguard the future of small businesses across the country… they’ll probably be the future employers of all the staff he has culled.
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Get off my turf Highfield.
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I congratulate HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk and Johnson Press for the focus on business rate tax relief for small retail businesses (I have no vested interest) but agree that swingeing business taxes have hammered SRB for far too long.
I would like to suggest that you feature for ‘highlighting and praise’ those newspapers that regularly run ‘useful and needful’ reader petitions. Let them compete for our ‘patronage’.
Thus giving plebs and serfs like myself a small but effective democratic voice in the vast murky ocean of political spin and obfuscation that we, the electorate, have been bathed in for generations.
Many of us would warm to supporting a press that offers a popular forum to readers and works to reign in the Westminster ruling elite (of all colours).
Readers letters and petitions allow us to vent our spleen to the men and women in suits.
Your assistance is solicited in reigning in these reptilian and cold blooded power mongers and giving a greater voice to those of us clinging to the lower rungs of this slippery ladder.
East London UKIP apparatchik – aka Epsilon minus semi-moron
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Maybe it was the thought of all Ashley’s UGC that terrified George into action.
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