At the last meeting of the Retail Forum, consideration was given to the rating of market stalls and market halls. Some of our members have received correspondence from the Specialist Rating Unit of the Valuation Office Agency which points out that there appears to be inconsistency in the way many of the market halls are assessed for rating purposes. It is suggested that many are wrongly assessed due to incorrect identification of the unit of assessment. It is suggested that the problem has arisen when considering covered market halls within which the stalls occupy permanent positions but the difficulties may also apply to permanent covered outdoor markets. In such cases, across the country, some markets have been the subject of a single assessment while in other cases the market halls have been separately assessed. The issue has been tested at Land Tribunal and more recently in a decision of the Merseyside Valuation Tribunal (Market Hall, Clauthton Road, Birkenhead, Merseyside Appeal No. 43255924-132N95-19) issued in April 2004, appealed to Land Tribunal and subsequently withdrawn in January 2005.

The Retail Forum thought this was a matter that NABMA should pursue to establish consistency throughout the country. It would therefore be helpful if you could let me know the current arrangements for the assessment of your market hall so that we can consider how to deal with this matter in future. The Retail Forum asked that a further report be submitted to the next meeting, following receipt of information from members. Can you therefore please provide information with regard to the following questions:

1. Do you operate a covered market hall?
2. If so, what rating arrangements currently apply. Is the market hall rated separately or are the stalls rated separately?
3. Do you operate a permanent covered outdoor market.
4. If so, is the market rated separately or are the stalls rated separately?