Councils estimated to take 750 businesses to court over rates every day last year

Councils sued around 750 businesses a day over business rates in the last financial year, researchers at Altus Group have claimed.

The figure makes up around 10% of liable businesses in the UK, averaging out at 750 summons per day across the period.

Westminster Council were found to have sent the most summons from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019, with 6,882 issued. The London borough was followed by Birmingham (6,166), Manchester (5,228), Liverpool (4,254) and Leeds (3,497).

Meanwhile, Richmond and Wandsworth councils were found to have issued summons to 27.6% of businesses in their constituency.

Researchers at the advisory firm were able to recover information on more than 1.7 million business across the UK - or 90% of liable firms - through the freedom of information act, and used projections to calculate the remaining 10%.