by Ian Austen

ian.austen@essnmedia.co.uk

A cash injection provided by Croydon businesses for town centre improvements could be scrapped because of the Crossrail link.

From next year, London Mayor Boris Johnson wants to increase business rates to help pay for the train line, which will connect east and west London via the West End, the City and Canary Wharf.

It is feared the hike may see many Croydon firms pull out of a voluntary agreement to contribute to street cleaning and extra policing.

Croydon businesses are also concerned about paying towards Crossrail as they will not benefit directly because it will not run through the borough.

Leaders of the Croydon Business Improvement District (BID) have been meeting with the mayor's representatives.

BID manager Ros Morgan said: "We had some quite useful discussions and we have arranged a follow up meeting next month.

"We will still be pressing for exemptions from payments."

Under the Mayor's plan, businesses across London, with a rateable value of £50,000 or more, will face a two per cent hike in their business rates to pay towards Crossrail.

It is anticipated that Croydon businesses as a whole will be contributing not far short of £4m to pay for the rail link.

For firms in the town centre this could, according to Ms Morgan, add anywhere between £1,000 and £40,000 to their annual rate bills, depending on their size.

And as 560 of these companies already voluntarily pay one per cent extra on their rates to the BID to fund town centre initiatives, Ms Morgan believes the mayor's extra charge might be bad news for BID's future.

Supporters of this levy – which raises £1m a year – have voted to pay it until 2012 but this will have to be renewed beyond this date by another vote in 2011.

Ms Morgan fears, because the Crossrail charge is mandatory, when BID members are faced with this vote, they may think twice about committing to it.

Realistically, Croydon businesses seem to accept that avoiding any extra payment is out of the question. But they believe they could persuade the mayor to grade charges according to how close boroughs are to the link and what direct benefits will result from it.