Dear Madam, - About February/March last year I attended a quarterly Petrol Retailers Association Meeting at which Land and Property services presented the Revaluation 2015 Agenda for our business sector. Basically the rental values upon which rates are assessed have not been reviewed in Northern Ireland since 2001. And in order to bring them into line and rebalance the weight of the burden from town centres, which we all recognise needed addressing, this review was necessary. While real figures were not presented at this meeting we were in no way led to believe that we would be facing increases of the magnitude we now are. In fact if anything there was a level of reassurance provided. Draft Values were published back in October/November. For my business that translates as a rise of 70 per cent or in money terms an increase of £11,000 to a bill that is already significant!

I know people look at this petrol station and think it’s a gold mine! They see lots of people come and go and they think we’re raking in the ££s. The reality is very different from that and few people except petrol forecourt operators and maybe their accountants and bank managers understand that. Don’t get me wrong I am very grateful for the number of customers that come through my doors and we have managed to make a success of our business but it has taken brave decisions and a significant amount of investment, personal risk and a lot of very hard work. To get people through your doors you have to be offering something they want and it’s no longer the case that convenience shops can charge a premium! We have over the past 5/10 years reduced our margins significantly in order to compete and offer the kind of value that customers need to make the decision to come back. We have had to adapt as many business have in order to survive and grow and be in a position to offer employment and further develop our business. That’s the spirit of a thriving business and following on from that thriving economy.

There are few other people expected to work on margins of 3 to 5 per cent but for many petrol retailers that is the reality for between 30 to 50 per cent of their turnover depending on where you are located. And that’s before you take any costs into account such as lighting a forecourt, paying for steel tanks under the ground, pumps and their maintenance, drive off management, credit card charges, staffing, health and safety and environmental regulatory or best practice charges. The list is endless.

To have one of your biggest costs increased by 70 per cent is just an insult to the work that we have done and shows a complete lack of understanding of the financial constraints we operate within. It’s not acceptable and it simply isn’t possible! You cannot absorb a cost increase of that magnitude without something giving so in my case jobs will be lost/hours will have to be cut. It’s as simple as that. For many of my peers it is actually even more serious, it is the difference between profitability and non profitability! They cannot survive. Can you imagine been told that the interest in your mortgage was going to rise by 70+ per cent overnight with no capacity to do anything about it?! What would that do to the family budget? So that sobering reality stirred me to action. I researched the area around me which you can do easily once you collate postcodes of neighbouring business.

Those local to me are seeing increases of 20 per cent and still way over the national average of 8 per cent but clearly some distance from 70 per cent. I thought that a bit strange surely we should all be seeing similar increases? So I started to collate postcodes and figures for all the petrol stations that I could find, mostly Fermanagh and some in Tyrone. The figures were startling.

As a business sector without exception we are carrying an unfair portion of the rebalanced rates revaluation and the picture is repeated throughout Northern Ireland. I have begun a process of making people aware of the situation first and foremost. Today I had an email from a retailer who did not realise that this was coming until they received my email and they are facing a rise of 251 per cent to their rates bill!! How do you budget for that! It’s crazy!

I had a call from another retailer facing a rise of 191 per cent! How can our civil servants even have the insensitivity to commit such figures to paper! It’s ridiculous and I expect our local politicians to engage and drive this agenda very hard on our behalf. We have no right of appeal until after these rates go live! So we are expected to pay them even though we cannot afford them until such times as LPS hear and review our appeals and then make their decision. At which point you might qualify for a back payment. A back payment is no good to you if you’re closed because you simply can’t afford to pay or the bank has pulled your facility with them because you are exceeding your overdraft in order to pay. I am demanding intervention and action by our representative bodies. As a business sector we need to mobilise and join together to let our politicians and MLAs know that this is not acceptable and we simply can’t and won’t tolerate it.

I would strongly advise that all business particularly petrol filling stations outside the town centre of Enniskillen or Omagh to inform themselves by reviewing their draft Rates Revaluation figure. Go onto the RATES REVAL NI 2015 website armed with your postcode and discover your draft revaluation figure if you have not already done so. Look up a few neighbouring business also if you can gather their postcodes. It must be remembered that the REVAL figure is just the base figure, the district and local rates have yet to be applied and it is widely suspected that they too will increase. They will not be known for another couple of weeks.

If as I suspect from my research you are looking at rates increases between 40 per cent and 100 per cent then I urge do not sit and worry about this on your own; get proactive; lobby your local representatives; lobby your trade representatives etc Regardless of whether you belong to the Petrol Retailers Association or not, if you would like me to forward your rates details to them to be included in a case they are actively building please email your details to lilleyenniskillen@centra.co.uk. Also forward your concerns to glyn.roberts@niirta.com.

Rises of this magnitude are grossly unfair, unethical and simply unaffordable and we need to stand up and say No.

Yours faithfully, Una Lilley Lilley’s Centra and Topaz Station Drumlyon, Enniskillen