Charities save fortune on business rates

Charities and volunteer groups in Cradley Heath and Rowley Regis are to save more than £15,000 a year with the abolition of business rates.

Sandwell Council chiefs have agreed to scrap discretionary business rate payment for voluntary and charity organisations with bases in the borough.

The authority is putting £105,000 aside from its new budget to fund discretionary business rate relief, which will kick in when the new financial year starts on April 1.

Councillor Bill Thomas, council leader and Rowley ward councillor, said the move had been widely welcomed by volunteers.

He said that in Cradley Heath and Rowley Regis alone savings would add up to more than £15,000 a year.

"We are proud of the fact that our decision to scrap the need for charities and voluntary organisations to pay rates will mean so much to hundreds of volunteers," he said. "They will no longer need to find one penny for the rates in the future when in the past they have had to set aside a slice of their fund-raising efforts to pay the bills.

"It is good news for the wonderful range of charity and volunteer groups we have in Sandwell and for the wonderful volunteers who run organisations like the girls guides and scouts and the vital charity shops."

Organisations set to benefit include Sandwell Adventure Playground Association, which will save nearly £2,000, including a £781 bill for the Riddins Mound Children Centre, Applewood Grove, Cradley Heath.

Old Hill Cricket Club will save £3,000, Arts in Mind, which has three sites in Rowley Regis, will save £2,300 and the Cats Protection group will save more than £400 in rates for offices in Rowley Regis High Streeet and Cradley Heath High Street.