DONCASTER/SHEFFIELD

[Suzeman]

Rates

To answer the query on rates, I just found this on UK Airport News.

Suzeman

Robin Hood Airport faces higher operating costs after councillors refused to bail out operators with hardship relief worth nearly £4 million, the Free Press reports. Peel Holdings - owners of the airport - lost its appeal for exemption from paying business rates for four years at a council meeting on Friday.

This year the airport paid rates of £803,880 for its site at Finningley. Airport bosses said that, as a result of the decision, they cannot now afford to market the airport and Doncaster overseas in a bid to attract more people to the area.

Airport bosses had argued the business rates represented a ‘very significant overhead’ and not paying them would have allowed Peel to increase its overseas marketing to encourage more airlines to use the £100m development. If granted, the local authority would have had to pass on a shortfall in its income of nearly £1 million to tax-payers which would have seen council tax bills rise by 1.1 percent.

The council declined the appeal - which had initially been rejected last year - stating the case did not satisfy the necessary criteria to be granted under Local Government Finance Act 1988.