MP’s bid to get South Holland District Council share of Viking Link and Triton Knoll business rates money

A bid has been launched to ensure that a council gets its fair share of £10million worth of business rates from two major energy projects.

Sir John Hayes, South Holland and the Deepings MP, has written to Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, to ask her department to look again at how the money from the Triton Knoll Offshore Wind Farm and the Viking Link Interconnector is distributed.

Currently East Lindsey District Council is set to get the business rates from these projects - despite the fact that the infrastructure being hosted in the South Holland district.

Leader of South Holland District Council, Nick Worth, had previously spoken out about the ‘massive difference’ a small amount of the business rates from these projects would make to his authority’s budgets. He said Triton Knoll would be generate around £4.4million a year in rates and £6million from the Viking Link interconnector, which is based on the outskirts of Donington.

In a letter shared with this website, Sir John says that South Holland is missing out on the money due to Regulation 6 of the Non-Domestic (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 1989. This forces National Significant Infrastructure Projects to be treated as one rateable area and for that to be attributed to the council with the greatest rateable value.

He writes: “The impact of this is that South Holland District Council misses out on a little over £10million annually - surely, money that is owed, given the physical location of the infrastructure.

“I know from previous correspondence with your predecessor that the Valuation Office Agency make the decision about which local authority is deemed to contain the greatest amount of land affected, but I would be grateful if your department looked afresh at how to ensure that, in these situations, both councils receive their fair share of rates.

“I note that the Government previously pledged to look at reforms to business rate retention, and so would appreciate it if this could be part of that consideration. Revision to ensure legal provision for this sharing of rates between councils is long overdue.

“South Holland District Council is only asking for the share of rates which derive from infrastructure it hosts. Access to this funding would be of immense significance for the council, and thus my constituents.”

Currently South Holland is being targeted for large scale energy infrastructure projects such as the National Grid’s Grimsby to Walpole pylons and a substation in Weston Marsh and the 750MW Meridian solar farm on 900 hectares on several parcels of land around Crowland, Shepeau Stow and Sutton St Edmund. National Grid is also looking at proposals to bury cables through South Holland to link up a Scottish offshore windfarm with the Walpole Substation near King’s Lynn.

The Viking Link Interconnector – which will act in a similar way to a laptop power cable, but on a huge scale – has been built on the outskirts of Donington to bring in and transmit renewable energy between this country and Denmark.

This has prompted the council to unanimously agree to calling on ‘national authorities and infrastructure project planners to recognise the importance of the Fenland landscape and South Holland’s role as a food-producing area’.

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