BOLTON Council is owed more than £5 million in unpaid business rates, it has been revealed.

The authority has failed to collect a total of £5,046,201.77 in rates from firms in the borough since 2010 — with more than £2 million owed from the 2015/16 financial year alone.

The data shows that the amount left uncollected has also significantly increased each year. In 2010/11 the council failed to collect just less than £205,000, with more than £292,622 uncollected in 2011/12 and more than half a million pounds missed out on from the 2012/13 financial year.

That figure rose to close to £863,000 in 2013/14 and to more than £1 million the following year. The largest amount of uncollected business rates came in the latest financial year — amounting to £2,049,012.94.

The figures have been released after a Freedom of Information request made by Bolton’s Liberal Democrat party, which is calling on the ruling Labour group to put a better plan in place for collecting business rates from the town’s companies.

This issue has increased in relevance since the Government announced a new plan to allow local councils to retain 100 per cent of the business rates collected in a borough, rather than the 50 per cent currently retained locally.

Liberal Democrat chairman Kevin Walsh, who made the request, said: “The Conservative government is planning to let councils keep 100 per cent of business rates in the future in order to create ‘self-sufficient’ councils.

“While this sounds like a great plan — in towns like Bolton which are struggling to bring sustained high-value business investment and collect revenue from businesses who are failing to pay — we are likely to see a considerable reduction in council budgets for many years ahead.”

He added: “We call on the council to rethink their strategy and hold a public consultation to find alternative ways in which savings can be made without impacting on the livelihoods of hard working council staff.”

But authority chiefs have hit back and said that it has consistently achieved high rates of collecting tax from businesses.

A spokesman said: “The council currently collects millions of pounds each year in business rates and has consistently achieved very high collection rates.

“In 2015-16, the council charged £88.39m and was able to collect over 96 per cent of these rates by March 31 2016, bringing in over £85m.

“Since 2010 the council has collected over £500m in business rates. The majority of this is currently passed to national government, however in future, when the council is able to retain 100 per cent of business rates, we aim to continue achieving our high collection rates. The Rating List (which rates bills are based on) is administered by the Valuation Office Agency and is constantly being updated. Alterations or new charges made close to the end of the year are often only be able to be collected after 31 March and can be classed as arrears and distort the collection rates.”

This rebuttal was backed up by Cllr Ebrahim Adia, executive cabinet member for development and regeneration, who added: “Our overall collection rates compare favourably with other local authorities. There can be a million reasons why a business falls behind with its business rates payments — but it is important to point out that we won’t give up on collecting this money, we will continue our efforts to collect it for the taxpayers of Bolton.”

HAVE YOUR SAY: Email letters@theboltonnews.co.uk