Businesses in Caerphilly County Borough are being urged to take advantage of a rate relief scheme.
Eligible firms can claim up to £1,000 in business rate relief from Caerphilly County Borough Council.
Introduced by Welsh Government, the Wales Retail Relief Business Rate Scheme aims to give qualifying ratepayers assistance on a business rates bill for the financial year 2014/15.
The grant assistance applies to qualifying occupied retail premises with a rateable value of £50,000 or less, that are wholly or mainly providing a service to visiting members of the public.
Officers from Caerphilly County Borough Council have already posted application forms to qualifying shops, restaurants, cafés and drinking establishments encouraging them to take advantage.
A business can still apply for Wales Retail Relief where it is already receiving other forms of rate relief, such as small business rate relief, however, the amount of relief will be capped to the amount of rates actually payable.
The Welsh Government is also making funding available to local authorities to deliver a Local Needs Business Rate Relief Scheme.
The scheme adopted by the council aims to provide rate relief for the financial year 2014/15 to those businesses occupying premises with a rateable value of £50,000 or less that are identified in the ‘rating list’ for the council’s area as being an industrial property type and the property is used for manufacturing or industrial warehousing.
Meanwhile, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Federation of Small Businesses in Wales have revealed that in the last financial year Caerphilly Council issued rate relief to just two businesses.
The relief, which totalled £3,636.47, was made under Section 49 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and is different to the Welsh Government schemes mentioned earlier.
The Act gives local authorities the power to give rate relief to businesses if they believe that it is in the interests of the local community to do so.
In the two financial years prior to 2013/14, Caerphilly Council issued no relief.
Across Wales, just 11 councils out of 22 gave relief in the three year period.
FSB Wales Policy Unit Chair Janet Jones said: “Given that some authorities have made such good use of this form of relief it is disappointing that others have made no use of these powers at all in recent years.”
Responding to the FSB’s figures, a spokesman for Caerphilly County Borough Council, said: “The council looks to actively promote all business rates and relief schemes available to businesses, and publicises them on the business rates pages of the authority’s website.
“The council has only received a limited number of applications for hardship relief over the period in question, but has looked to act favourably on any applications where the business would have otherwise sustained hardship and it was in the interests of the local council tax payers to award relief.”