The British Property Federation (BPF) has piled more pressure on the Government over the empty property relief laws by launching a website to raise awareness of its campaign.

The property industry has been united in its criticism of the Government for removing the 50 per cent relief on empty properties, which the BPF says has led to the demolition of 15 million sq ft of buildings. The BPF, British Retail Consortium and BCSC have all openly criticised the move and called on the Government to reintroduce the relief.

BPF chief executive Liz Peace said: “The retail sector is vital to local prosperity and this tax is serving to hit retailers who are trying to survive with a tax bill for space they can’t use because spending has fallen off. Any tax take which increases as income goes down is fundamentally wrong.

“Empty rates isn’t just hitting big retailers who may be closing stores, it’s hitting individuals who may have owned a post office closed down by the Government. With every passing day Gordon Brown and Lord Mandelson are digging a bigger hole for us to climb out of.”

The BPF is inviting retailers and landlords to post examples on the site, emptyproperty.com, of how the change to the law, brought in a year ago, has affected them. It will use the information to demonstrate to the Government the ways in which retailers are suffering as a result.

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