Peterborough City Council vows to collect outstanding £1.6 million plus in unpaid business rates

Council chiefs have released more details about £1.6 million that is owed in unpaid business rates in a single year in Peterborough.

Figures released by Peterborough City Council show that for the financial year 2022/23 there was a total of £1,689,393.68 owed in business rates.

It was a huge increase on the amounts owed by Peterborough businesses during the previous four years.

Now the council has revealed that £77,312 of the £1.6 million plus was owed by a single business.

And the council says it is committed to recouping all outstanding business rates.

A spokesperson said: “The outstanding amount of business rates owed to the council for 2022/23 relates to a total of 354 accounts encompassing varying amounts owed as of March 31 2023.

“The £1.6 million owed will continue to be collected over the coming months and equates to less than 1.6 per cent of the total amount billed in 2022/23.

The spokesperson added: “The collection rate for 2022/23 at 98.4 per cent was the highest that the council has ever achieved and using last year’s collection statistics, puts the council well into the upper quartile nationally.”

It has also been revealed that the number of liability orders issued by the city’s magistrates’ court for non payment of business rates reached 607 in 2022/23.

That was a fall on 708 liability orders issued in 2021/22. There were no liability orders in 2020/21 due to Covid-19 restrictions. 347 liability orders were made in 2019/20 and 470 in 2018/19.