The Government's announcement yesterday that it is to postpone next year's much-needed business rates revaluation until 2015 and not implement it until 2017, has been greeted with despair by Britain's retailers, many of whom are struggling to pay rates based on rents back in 2008 when they were just about at their peak.

With rental values down over the majority of the country and in some areas having fallen by as much as 30%, the promise of a rate reduction was, for some, an incentive to struggle on. Now that this incentive has been removed I wonder how many more retailers will shut their doors for good...

Yours,

Jan Hobbs