Let's get thousands to sign our business rates petition
It's taken over two months to be officially accepted as a Government petition, but this week our plea for business rates relief to be granted to all ELT centres finally went live.
So – please share it! We need 10,000 signatures to get an official response, and 100,000 for a guaranteed Parliamentary debate. Signatories need to be resident in the UK, so please don't share with overseas partners, but friends, family, staff, colleagues and host families would be perfect.
The background
Many English language teaching schools are excluded from the business rates relief scheme for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, despite providing educational holidays for 550,000 overseas visitors a year.
Schools closed their doors as part of the national effort to keep people safe but now face financial ruin.
The Chancellor announced that all retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in England - those most impacted by Covid-19 - would benefit from a business rates holiday for the next 12 months. However, due to some unclear guidance from the Ministry of Communities, Housing & Local Government, many English language schools are being deemed as ineligible by local authorities. Without this relief, many schools will be lost along with the jobs that they support and other benefits they bring to the UK.
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