{"id":270600,"date":"2025-03-31T09:23:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T09:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/31\/belper-cafe-owners-concern-over-business-rate-relief-reduction\/"},"modified":"2025-03-31T09:23:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T09:23:24","slug":"belper-cafe-owners-concern-over-business-rate-relief-reduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/31\/belper-cafe-owners-concern-over-business-rate-relief-reduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Belper cafe owner’s concern over business rate relief reduction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Belper<\/div>


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George Torr<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News, Derby<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ed Collard<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News, East Midlands<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Donna Carr said the 2024-2025 financial year had been the worst since she opened her cafe six years ago<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A small business owner has said her cafe will struggle to survive due to rising costs and is calling on the government for more support.<\/p>\n

Donna Carr runs Dot-teas Emporium, which also acts as a hub for people to come together for art and craft projects, in Bridge Street in Belper, Derbyshire.<\/p>\n

She said the 2024-25 financial year had been the worst since she opened in 2019.<\/p>\n

Ms Carr thinks the situation for her and others will “only get worse” due to the expected reduction in business rate discounts and the cost-of-living crisis, adding: “I don’t think [the government] do anything to support us.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the new financial year, National Insurance contributions (NICs) for employers are set to rise<\/a> from 13.8% to 15%, there will be a reduction in business rate discount and an increase in the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

The level at which employers start paying NICs, the secondary threshold, will also reduce from \u00a39,100 to \u00a35,000 per year.<\/p>\n

But the Employment Allowance, which helps eligible employers reduce their NIC liability, will increase from \u00a35,000 to \u00a310,500 to enable small businesses to offset the rise.<\/p>\n

Since 2020, businesses like cafes, bars and retail units have had a 75% discount on business rates – capped at \u00a3110,000 per business – but this is due to expire on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Downward spiral’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Ms Carr described the 2024-25 financial year as “shocking”.<\/p>\n

She described her current situation as “hand to mouth” and fears there will be a “downward spiral”.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think [the government] think about the independent businesses,” she added.<\/p>\n

“They all say ‘shop local’ but it’s us that gets hammered. <\/p>\n

“We’re not the big companies, they can afford it but we can’t.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think they do anything to support us.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Jeevun<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Jeevun Sandher, Labour MP for Loughborough, said the burden from the changes would be felt on larger employers the most<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Speaking on Politics East Midlands<\/a>, Jeevun Sandher, Labour MP for Loughborough, said the largest burden on NICs would be on large employers.<\/p>\n

“Our changes on National Insurance double the employer allowance so you can now employ four people on the National Minimum Wage without paying National Insurance,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It does mean a million businesses will pay the same or less than before… it’s essentially a tax cut in April.<\/p>\n

“Our decisions around tax were to protect the smallest businesses… in order to fund investment in the NHS.<\/p>\n

“We’ve protected the smallest employers by putting [the changes] on the largest employers as well as the richest individuals.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Torr BBC News, Derby Ed Collard BBC News, East Midlands BBC Donna Carr said the 2024-2025 financial year had been the worst since she opened her cafe six years ago A small business owner has said her cafe will struggle to survive due to rising costs and is calling on the government for more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[207716,449,8253,2851,6603,3176,32048,6661],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270602,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270600\/revisions\/270602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}