Non-domestic Rates: Ports

Mr. Austin Mitchell
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether the Valuation Office Agency made a separate assessment for business rates for each port operator working in the hereditament of a statutory port in 2005.

Ms Rosie Winterton
An entry in the 2005 rating lists was made for each of the statutory port operators where they were in occupation of a hereditament within a designated port. In some cases there is more than one rating list entry where the statutory port operator occupied more than one separately rateable hereditament.

Where any part of a port is occupied by another business operator, who is not the statutory designated port operator, their hereditament within the port falls to be separately rated. For the 2005 rating list about 1,600 separate hereditaments were rated within ports in England.

The recent rating review of ports found that around 600 hereditaments in England should be separately assessed as these hereditaments were not occupied by the designated port operator as at 1 April 2005.