Drink Talking: Tim Norfolk

Does the government have an interest in high rents asks Tim Norfolk of the Rose & Thistle, Rockbourne, Hampshire.

When looking on the website of the Valuation Office Agency - www.voa.gov.uk - to find the new rateable value of my pub, I was astonished to find that two pubs with a very similar size trading area and turnover had very different rateable values.

The first pub was a freehold freehouse, while the second was a pub leased from a pubco.

Investigating a little further on the web it began to emerge that freehold freehouses in general have a lower rateable valuation than comparable-sized tenanted pubs.

After reading the government's official response to last year's Trade & Industry Select Committee report into the pubcos, the penny finally began to drop.

One section assessment form requires information on the current rent, and what it includes. The figure, together with the annual turnover from three specific years, is used by the valuation office to arrive at its rateable value.

But we are led to believe turnover has no bearing on the valuation, just a notional rent.

How can anyone argue that the high rent is not market value when they agreed to it in the first place, thereby making it the market value?

I do not have any real evidence and I am probably looking for something that is not really there. Or could it just be that it suits this government to allow the pubcos to keep rents high so that the income from the non-domestic rate tax can be maximised?

It should be remembered that these rates are only collected by local government - and then totally passed on to central government.

Has anyone else noticed anything similar?