The Spalding Town Board will look at paying rates for new businesses or those in trouble as part of its ‘masterplan’.
That’s according to South Holland District Council leader and board member Coun Nick Worth.
He was responding to Coun James Le Sage who asked if the council could support new businesses by giving them rate relief.
“We certainly have done that in the past,” responded Coun Worth. “Part of the agreement with the Spalding Town Board is to look at those things.
“There will be a package of support for business rate reductions for new start-ups to encourage and help them when they set up and for when some businesses are really struggling.
“If we can help we will do.”
Business rates are equivalent to the council tax paid by households.
The Spalding Town Board, has been set up to spend £20m over ten years for towns deemed ‘left behind’.
Coun Le Sage also brought up the recent announcement that £140,000 was going to be spent on creating the ‘master plan’.
“A lot of our residents speak of consultations where the result was one thing and when the decision was made they felt it overrode their thoughts,” he said.
Coun Worth said the money for this consultation had been provided by central government to do exactly that.
“I appreciate the public gets fed up with consultations,” the leader said. “When we started the town board there was quite a bit of consultation done.
“We’ve logged what people would like to see in the town and that’s been pretty clear.
“We’re not going to do a consultation on the same thing previously but what we are going to be doing is producing a master plan for the town.
“We’re near the end of a retail survey for the town. I think that’s going to be interesting reading because it will tell us where people go to spend their money and their leisure time.
“It will tell us how often people go to Peterborough or King’s Lynn or Lincoln and the type of retail people that would be interested in coming to town.
“It’s really interesting information coming to the next town board meeting and I’ll let you see it as soon as it’s about.”
