Join Our Campaign for Fair Business Rates

A ratchetting up of closures of popular town centre pubs, restaurants, cafes, bars and hotels in Wales, to name a few, could very soon become a reality, because of looming rises to business rates that will once again unfairly punish hospitality.

The serious threat emerged after Welsh Government efforts to reform rates led to proposals that totally exclude help for under-fire hospitality venues.

Let’s start with a positive – it’s absolutely right that the Welsh Government has accepted the need to reform the blatant inconsistencies that now exist in the out-of-date and unfair business rates system.

UKHospitality Cymru has argued that, for too long, successive governments have overseen weighty and increasing imbalances within the rating system as out-of-town stores and internet businesses pay proportionately less than mainstay bricks and mortar businesses.

We estimate that hospitality has been paying three times as much as it should be in a fair business rates system. In recent years, this imbalance has been somewhat balanced by a set of specific sectoral annual rates reliefs of between 40% and 75% – reliefs following Government recognition of the true level of contributions our venues could afford.

So, it is encouraging that Welsh Government’s current proposals follow our line of reasoning and would include new multipliers that level the playing field between smaller bricks and mortar units and larger out-of-town businesses.

But surprisingly, its plans only cover local retail outlets and completely overlook hospitality.

Local hospitality venues – sitting in similar buildings in similar locations and suffering the same unjust financial impacts as our friends in retail – have been cut out of the proposals.

It is ironic that Welsh Government originally prefaced these changes with claims that they will be a formula for protecting and rebuilding city centres. Not without hospitality, they won’t.

Ultimately, the plans will see hospitality pay even more. These rate rises risk gutting the high street and devastating town centres. They will threaten the very existence of our locals – the pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants that are part of our lives across Wales.

The new proposals, critically coupled with a cut off in business rates consequential funding for Wales from Westminster, mean that there will effectively be no support for Welsh hospitality businesses in 2026/27 unless the Welsh Government reverses its current proposed position.

That lack of support will mean a typical high street pub will be paying an extra £6,800 per year in business rates; a typical country hotel would see an increase of around £17,000 per year; and a city-centre hotel would see nearly £50,000 extra in costs.

Some of Wales’s finest accommodation attractions will see even bigger increases, damaging domestic, international and business tourism.

This could all be made worse still by revaluations taking place next year, that will likely force rates upwards, given they are being compared to the period just after post-pandemic reopening, and compound the difficulties created by the industry’s exclusion from support in the new proposals.

UKHospitality Cymru is urging all hospitality businesses – and those who work in hospitality or supply them – to sign up to our campaign to fight for our inclusion in these plans.

Come and join us. Help us turn this around. Write to the Welsh Government or your local Member of Senedd and let them know that you think the exclusion of hospitality from this new package is wrong.

Let them know that many pubs and restaurants have already stretched their cost coping to the limit. Remind them these stalwarts of our communities have suffered Covid closures and restrictions, high inflation, high energy costs, food and drink rises and National Insurance hikes.

Tell them that the public – our friends and families – is also under the cosh and have no further disposable income to pay the higher prices that our businesses will be reluctantly forced to pass on to cover these rates hikes.

Wherever you live and work, these are venues you will know well – where you meet colleagues or business contacts to discuss work, catch up with a friend for coffee, where you take relatives to celebrate and where you take the family and children to wind down after a working week. They are community assets and keen commercial contributors that have battled and survived.

Hospitality needs supporting, not snubbing.

UKHospitality Cymru will keep up the pressure on this vital issue for as long as it takes – please join us and offer your enthusiastic help.

UKHospitality Cymru membership is a community for like-minded businesses, all committed to shaping the future of the industry for the better. For more information on membership, visit the website here.