No shelter from rates
Page 47
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
SURELY the ultimate in fiscal nonsense has been reached with the Valuation Appeal Court's decision that the Lothian Regional Council must pay E32,348'rates on 923 bus shelters in the current financial year. In the past, shelters have been rateable only if they carried advertisements and the agency paid the rates, but now the impost has been made general.
The next logical step will be to change rates on those huts into which road-menders and holeminders dive to drink tea and play cards immediately they arrive at a site. I have long suspected that the occupants take in lodgers.
And what about those striped canvas awnings beneath which electrical and telephone engineers crouch in their manholes? Perhaps Lothian could offset some of that 02,348 by levying rates on them.
If I lived in Lothian I should be afraid to open my umbrella while waiting for a bus in case the heavy hand of the rating officer fell on my shoulder.