East End Trades Guild: fighting back against business rate rises

Bringing together a fourth generation paper bag maker, a pie and mash shop and a spoon carver, the East End Trades Guild was formed in 2012 to give small independent businesses in London’s east end a stronger voice.

With over 200 members, it campaigns to keep the high streets of east London vibrant and diverse in the face of mounting pressures on small businesses in the capital.

This week the Guild is holding an emergency meeting to discuss the recent rise in business rates, which founding organiser of the Guild Krissie Nicolson says is ‘crucifying small businesses’.

Business rates have recently undergone a revaluation based on property prices, lowering business rates in some parts of the north of England, but vastly increasing them in areas of London.

For Paul Gardner, who runs a 147-year old family business in the east end, the rateable value of his business has jumped from £18,000 to £40,500.

The Guild has set up a petition calling for greater rates relief for small businesses and also for the devolution of rates setting to London’s government so that they better suit the needs of the capital.

It ran a Twitter and letter writing campaign by members to inform MPs of the real impact of the rate change on their livelihoods.

The Guild also held its first East End Independents Day last year – to coincide with Small Business Saturday – during which a delegation of local businesses hosted London mayor Sadiq Khan at a breakfast meeting at east end Italian café E. Pellicci to talk about their issues.

A crowd-funding campaign in 2016 raised more than £21,000 to fund the guild’s work, and it has commissioned research from the New Economics Foundation on the collective impact of the Guild’s member’s on the local economy. A survey of members in 2013 valued their turnover at £77m and their contribution to business rates of £1.3m.

To Nicolson, the Guild is proving the power of the collective voice, amplifying the agency and campaigning muscle of traders. A listening exercise conducted in the early days of the Guild found the top issues of concern among members were rates, rents, and planning issues.

Trading between members has increased as their mutual support has grown and the Guild is making the case for stronger local economic resilience through powerful local networks.

For Nicolson, the starting point for all of the Guild’s work is relationship.

‘Our Guild is as much about people and place as it is about trade and business,’ she says. ‘We are building local relationships of trust and reciprocity.’

• To sign the petition on business rates click here.