Retailers desperate for business rates relief

Many UK retailers and shopkeepers are pressuring

Chancellor George Osborne to spend 1.7 billion pounds on a business rates freeze to help cash-strapped shops.

The British Chambers of Commerce today threw its weight behind long-standing pleas from the retail sector, calling on Osborne to announce the freeze in his Autumn Statement, due early next month.

The fresh demands for a rate freeze came as Dixons boss Sebastian James told The Mail on Sunday he believed it would take ten years for Britain’s high streets to recover from their current woes.