Empty rates measures: "Not enough"

Office design news from Morgan Lovell

Published on 25-11-2008

Manchester-based property professionals have claimed that chancellor Alastair Darling's pre-Budget report has not gone far enough in relieving the strain on Britain's ailing commercial property market.

Crain's Manchester Business has reported that although the chancellor has implemented a rate exemption for properties lying empty valued less than £15,000 - many feel that Mr Darling has "fallen well short" of what the industry required to reinvigorate it.

David Cownie, director of the professional team at the Manchester office of CB Richard Ellis, told the newspaper: "The chancellor has bowed to growing pressure from the industry, but its concessions will provide little relief to the majority of those affected by the Rating Act 2007."

Meanwhile, Builder & Engineer Online recently reported that commercial property values continued to fall last month, with the Investment Property Databank's index showing a record one-month fall of 4.3 per cent - the greatest single decline in its 22-year history.