RICS valuation guidance at end of the month

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) expects to publish its guidance for rental valuations of pubs at the end of this month, six months later than planned.

The organisation had been charged by the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) select committee of MPs to come up with an improved and more transparent pub valuation framework for the purposes of rent assessments as part of Parliamentarians' ongoing examination of the pub sector.

RICS published a draft guidance paper in September, inviting interested parties to submit comments on the document by the middle of last month.

With that consultation period now out of the way, RICS said it could assure the BIS committee that "the new guidance will take into account the views of all the relevant industry stakeholders to the process".

A RICS spokeswoman said the institution should be ready to publish at the end of this month, adding that submissions made during the consultation process are now being considered by its working group.

David Rusholme, RICS director of valuation, said: "The submissions that were made were all constructive and supportive of the new guidance which the cross industry group has drafted."

In written evidence to the BIS committee, RICS said it believed that the concentration of so many leased and tenanted pubs in the hands of a small number of landlords meant that a standardised system of benchmarking for rents could be created before the committee's June 2011 deadline for the industry to show it can effectively self-regulate.

It also said it noted the British Beer & Pub Association was "open" to adopting RICS guidance within its code of practice framework.