It has been a difficult few months for us all with the worry of the business rates bills coming in just as we thought we had something good to start planning for three years and hopefully beyond if we are able to get that ever elusive permanent space.

Whilst we dealt with this we tried to do what we could and honour the commitments made. We thought we would share that we have heard from the Central Government Valuation Office Agency for business rates and received good news!

Based on the case and evidence we submitted, they have agreed to remove the unused floors of our building from business rates and reclassify our area as a community centre backdated to July 2023. This reduces our rates bill from £432k pa to £28k pa. We can then apply for the 75% retail/hospitality and leisure relief we are entitled to bringing our annual rates bill down to £7k. We will apply for discretionary relief on this.

This is a big win for us, and for other community groups who utilise spaces to make social impact as it removes the need for us to defend ourselves in court against the bill which will now be adjusted and backdated correctly. The situation has made us vulnerable as we lost funding and time, and we need to start again to build up essential funding, but it is nice to have some good news to share.

It also means now we can focus on our work for the next three years and do what we set out to do when we started this 13 years ago, as community members making an accessible community space, grassroots, arts, culture and live music for everyone to enjoy that benefits our community and our local economy.

Please join in with what is going on, or if you have an idea then speak to us about it, volunteer or get involved – we can only do this if people support it.

Best Wishes

The Phoenix & Fiery Bird Team