05/02/2010 10:13
Mayor sets top rate for Crossrail levies - PlanningResource
Mark Smulian, Planning, 5 February 2010
London businesses with premises valued at more than £55,000 will pay the maximum
contribution to Crossrail, London mayor Boris Johnson has announced.
The levy is the first time that the Business Rate Supplements Act 2009 has been used. The act
allows county and unitary councils to impose a levy of up to two per cent towards local
infrastructure projects.
Business groups in London have long supported Crossrail - which by 2017 will provide a
direct rail connection across the capital from east to west - but wanted a lower levy.
The supplement will last for between 24 and 31 years and meet £4.1 billion of the project's
£15.9 billion cost. However, Johnson estimated that job creation and other economic benefits
would outstrip the levy contributions threefold by 2026. "Once the rail link is finished London
will be the best connected city in the world," he said.
Business group London First welcomed the higher threshold for levy payments, initially fixed
at £50,000. Chief executive Baroness Valentine said: "This small concession shows that
Johnson has listened but it is not as much as we would have liked. In return for the business
contributions, Crossrail must be built to the agreed specification, to time and to budget."
Trade body the British Retail Consortium argued that the mayor should have set a lower rate
because businesses already face higher bills from a rating revaluation in April.
Mayor sets top rate for Crossrail levies
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