The Hard-Hit Ratepayer
A grave injustice is being done to dwellers in evacuation areas, particularly London, by the Government's failure to announce measures of relief which ought to be provided to enable the local authorities to carry on without reducing their ratepayers to bankruptcy. In the case of London —through conditions caused by the war and by Govern- ment action—a considerable proportion of the population has been removed, so that thousands of houses are un- occupied and businesses deprived of their profits. War services have sent up costs, but the number of people to pay them are fewer and generally poorer. In the Borough of Kensington, for example, 35. in the new rate-demand is attributable to empty properties and reduced assessments. The only occupiers who can claim reduction in the assess- ment of properties now unsaleable and un-lettable are those who can prove reduction in business takings, whilst house- holders who may have been compelled to go elsewhere and leave their houses unoccupied can claim no reduction in assessment unless they remove their furniture and quit permanently. They must pay an increased rate on a property which has lost its occupation value. Another anomaly is that the L.C.C. in passing on its costs to the Boroughs is not required by law to make allowance for empty properties and reduced values, with the result that the burden is unequally distributed. The inequitable conditions created by Government inaction are discreditable to the Ministry of Health and the Treasury.
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