§ Mr. Altonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many applications have been received from ratepayers wishing to have a rate revaluation; how long it takes on average for an application to be processed; and how many are successful.
§ Mr. KingSince the last revaluation in 1973, just over 1½ million rating appeals have been made by ratepayers, including 140,000 during 1977–78.
The length of time taken to process an application varies during the life of a 686W valuation list, but the present average is down to about six months.
No information is available nationally on how many rating appeals are successful. However, figures recently obtained from a small but representative sample of valuation panel areas show that appeals by ratepayers were successful in 59 per cent. of cases that came to a hearing before the valuation courts in 1977–78.