The Government has confirmed the planned revaluation of business rates will no longer take place next year due to coronavirus.

It has postponed the revaluation until April 2022 to give businesses more certainty during the pandemic.

Communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, said: ‘We have listened to businesses and their concerns about the timing of the 2021 business rates revaluation and have acted to end that uncertainty by postponing the change.

’Now is the time for us to continue to focus on supporting businesses affected by the pandemic, including through our unprecedented package of almost £10 billion in business rates relief.’

ohn Webber, head of business rates at Colliers International, said: 'This is a sensible decision and something we have been calling for some time. The potential detrimental impact upon businesses to have a Revaluation during the Covid-19 period, giving uncertainty to their liability, along with the question of the state of the market on 1st April 2021, felt far too risky.

'We are submitting appeals for the material change caused by Coronavirus which will take up a lot of VOA resource and it seems sensible for the Revaluation to be postponed whilst these are handled.'