Joe Cussens, former managing director of The Bath Pub Company, has written to the Treasury Select Committee raising concerns over evidence given earlier this month by VOA chief executive Jonathan Russell.
Cussens, whose business was acquired by St Austell Brewery in 2023, said Russell did not fully explain the extent to which actual trading data informs valuations.
“The omission of how fair maintainable trade is actually derived is fundamental,” he told The Morning Advertiser (The MA). “In practice, pubs’ real trading figures end up driving their rateable value, despite claims this is only a starting point.”
Turnover, not viability
Most pubs are valued using Fair Maintainable Trade (FMT), a turnover-based estimate of what a reasonably efficient operator could achieve.
Cussens argues this frequently becomes a desktop exercise based on historic sales, with limited site visits or recognition of rising costs.
“There is a consistent correlation between jumps in trade and jumps in rateable value,” he said. “If trade recovers, the tax bill follows, regardless of whether profitability has.”
He added that VOA officers had privately acknowledged that maintainable trade is often derived by taking actual turnover and applying modest adjustments.
Cussens also questioned how the methodology used to translate Fair Maintainable Trade into a final rateable value has been validated, arguing that while the process is presented as highly technical, it is unclear whether it has been independently tested against real world pub profitability.
VOA responds
In response, a VOA spokesperson said its surveyors “carry out their work in line with legislation and use industry standard valuation methods,” adding that FMT “has been used to value pubs for many years.”
“FMT is informed by the actual turnover. However, we will always take individual facts into account and make adjustments where there is evidence to do so,” they said.
“At the last revaluation, many pubs were significantly affected by the pandemic, which resulted in much lower rateable values than they would have seen otherwise. If any pubs have since seen a recovery in their trade, by law we must reflect this in our new valuations.”
Volatility and inconsistency
Cussens said this approach creates volatility between rating cycles and disparities between similar properties.
In one example cited in his letter, a site in Bath saw its rateable value fall by 39% after being reclassified from a pub to a restaurant, despite no physical changes to the building.
He also criticised the check challenge appeal framework, arguing that operators “cannot reference previous valuations” and are prevented from comparing themselves with neighbouring pubs, making the system “tilted entirely in [the VOA’s] favour.”
The intervention comes as the trade braces for sharp increases under the 2026 rating list, with advisers warning pub rateable values could rise by around 30%.
Cussens said business rates were among several cumulative pressures that ultimately pushed him out of the trade.
“Each individual cost rise can be argued in isolation. But together they have transformed the economics of running a pub compared with 10 or 20 years ago.”
The VOA emphasised that businesses are able to challenge their valuations once they come into effect on 1 April 2026.
