At the end of last week, (Thursday February 25), gift retailer Tabi Marsh, director of Papilio at Heritage in Thornbury, near Bristol, told BBC News that if the Chancellor doesn’t extend the business rates holiday in his Budget this Wednesday (March 3) – scheduled to end in April – then it could mean that, sadly, she and her father will have to close their shop.
Tabi told the BBC’s business reporter Lucy Hooker, in an article that appeared on the BBC News website, that it’s the business rates holiday, along with furlough for workers, help with VAT, and government-backed loans and grants, that have saved her business during the pandemic. But if the business rates holiday ends in April, then she would have to start paying some £13,000 again – over half of Papilio’s profits – with no guarantee that people are going to return to the high street to shop and socialise in the same way that they did before the pandemic.
“We’re not saying we shouldn’t be paying business rates ever,” she told the BBC. “But the way they’re calculated is ridiculous. It isn’t a fair playing field between the high street and online. If the Chancellor decides to extend the help “it would be a lifeline”, Tabi stated.
Her father, and co-director of the shop, was interviewed on Radio 4 last Friday (February 26).
Tabi’s interview took place before Scotland announced a 12 month extension to the business rates holiday, with Tabi adding: “that’s something that definitely makes me feel happy! “
Top: Tabi Marsh, director, Papilio at Heritage in Thornbury.
