Business rate rise is bad timing

HJ New Editor, Matthew Batham reflects on the latest blow to small hair salons - a 5% rise in business rates.

 Wouldn't it be lovely if, just once, the government handed over some cash to the small business community - a nice little injection of capital to help firms get through the current economic downturn and beyond.

After all small businesses, including hair salons, are often the lifeblood of local communities and high streets.

In fact, salons are one of the few small businesses that still prosper in the high street environment - how many independently run butchers, grocers or hardware shops do you see now? It's all mobile phone shops and bargain basements.

Surely the government should be doing everything in its power to ensure hairdressers remain at the heart of the high street, not adding to the cost of being there.

But no, the latest bout of 'take, take, take' comes in the form of a 5% rise in business rates. Great.

We're in the middle of a recession, every penny counts, so what does the government do - chip away a little bit more from a salon's bottom line. Thanks Gordon.

As always the wonderfully opinionated Eileen Lawson, secretary general of the National Hairdressers Federation, had something to say on the subject.

"The NHF finds the government's use of September's 5% Retail Price Index inflation rate as a guide for setting business rates absurd," she said. "It will prove a serious blow for those salons teetering on the edge."

Co-owner of the Chapel, Tunbridge Wells, Toby Dicker wants to know what salons are getting in return for this hike in rates.

"What do we get back?" he fumed. "We pay for our own street lights and bins in Tunbridge Wells. I don't see what we get back more than any other council tax payer."

Fellow salon owner, Russell Eaton, of Russell Eaton in Barnsley, South Yorkshire is also angered by the decision.

"I imagine small businesses will feel the pinch - it might even close down a few in the current climate," he said.

Just what the country needs, more empty units to fill with pound shops.