The North West Business Rates team have saved £830k at an Industrial Estate in Blackpool, a pre-war industrial site of over 1 million sq ft.

The site is split into multiple units, a number of which are in a very poor condition and unlettable. The client was keen to reduce their rates liability, especially on the units which had little prospect of being let due to their condition. The short term strategy was to reduce holding costs before a sale or redevelopment of the site. A significant part of the holding costs were empty rates so a solution was required to mitigate or ideally remove the liability.

In order to minimise the void liability, a number of solutions were provided. For the units in a dilapidated condition, the North West Business Rates team sought a reduction to RV£0 and achieved this through working with our Building Consultancy and Industrial Agency teams. For the units in a reasonable state of repair, the tailored solution involved working with a local occupier in order to provide a rates mitigation scheme. By adopting these approaches, total rate savings for the fund were in the order of £830,000. The client has also benefited from ongoing future savings where properties have been removed from the rating list.

The client saw the benefit in having a single provider dealing with the estate delivering seamless advice across property management, building consultancy and business rates.