Andy Burnham is facing calls from leading authors, including Philip Pullman and Maggie O’Farrell, to extend business rates relief to independent bookshops. The campaign, organised by the Booksellers Association, has gathered the support of 234 independent booksellers who have signed an open letter sent on 13 August.
Open letter highlights disappointment
The letter states that bookshops were “deeply disappointed” to learn they would not be included in the additional relief currently available to pubs, clubs and live music venues. It argues that the government has accepted that businesses delivering significant community benefit deserve targeted support, and that bookshops clearly meet that test.
The authors, including Katherine Rundell and Elif Shafak, are backing the campaign to extend the relief to bookshops. The letter also suggests that business rates relief for bookshops would provide a meaningful legacy for the National Year of Reading.
Authors speak out
O’Farrell, author of Hamnet, said: “Independent bookshops are the beating hearts of our high streets and communities. They need all the support we can give them.” Rundell added: “To lose [bookshops] from our high streets would be to chip away at our culture, and at our ability to access fresh thought and new ideas.”
Pullman said: “In the current encircling corporate darkness, independent booksellers are lighthouses. They are almost the last beacons shining to remind us about private reading, personal discovery, and the life-saving joy of encountering minds and hearts that speak to us as one person to another.”
Call for action
Laura McCormack, the Booksellers Association’s head of policy and public affairs, said: “You can’t rebuild Britain’s high streets by tackling the wrong businesses while making it harder for the right ones to succeed.” The letter warns that the government’s stance risks being contradictory, promoting reading while implementing policies that reduce investment in bookshops and may contribute to their closure.
