RATES CUT: Verdi’s boss says only one of his five venues gets the 30% hospitality cut, and calls the £51,000 line “a cliff edge”

Ryan Hole has done the sums on Tuesday’s 30% business rates cut for hospitality. One of his five venues qualifies. Four do not. And none of it changes a decision he has to make this year.

The Secret Hospitality Group boss, who runs Verdi’s, ROK, The Lighthouse, Ula and The Secret Beach Bar and Kitchen with his sister Lucy, says his own business is “a pretty good example of how the £51,000 threshold will work in practice”.

The Secret, on the seafront, gets under. Its rateable value is around £43,250, he says, so it qualifies for the permanent cut announced this morning, which moves hospitality and leisure venues onto the lower rates multiplier from April 2027.

Verdi’s does not. Neither does the Bracelet Bay building where The Lighthouse and ROK trade. Nor, on his figures, does Ula at Oyster Wharf.

Same owner. Same stretch of coast. Same wage bill, food costs, energy bills and VAT. Different treatment, because of the building.

“We therefore have hospitality businesses within the same group, operating in the same area and facing the same pressures around wages, food, energy and VAT, but being treated very differently because of the rateable value of the property they occupy,” Hole said.

The Secret’s £6,500 win

Rateable value is the Valuation Office Agency’s estimate of a year’s rent for the building. It has nothing to do with how busy the place is or whether it makes money.

On this year’s multipliers, a property rated at £43,250 pays about £21,700. On the lower rate it would pay about £15,100, a saving of roughly £6,500 a year. The Welsh Government says the 2027 multipliers will not be set until after the UK Autumn Budget.

Hole is not sniffy about it. “Any permanent reduction in rates is obviously welcome, and for the venues that qualify it will make a meaningful difference.”

Verdi’s and Bracelet Bay: above the line, and above the next one too

Verdi’s rateable value is around £157,000, he says. Bracelet Bay is around £125,000. Both are above the £100,000 mark where Wales’s higher multiplier kicks in.

That higher rate is the one the Welsh Government says will be nudged up to fund the cut, with the gap to the standard rate widening by less than a penny to around two pence in the pound. Whether that means a bigger bill at Verdi’s or Bracelet Bay depends on multipliers that will not be set until after the Autumn Budget.

So the group’s two biggest buildings are furthest from the break its smallest one gets.

Nor has the Welsh Government said what happens to venues above the line when the temporary 15% relief runs out. That relief, for pubs, restaurants, cafés and bars, covers this financial year and is capped at £110,000 per business across Wales.

“A business at £52,000 receives nothing”

Hole’s harshest words are for the line itself. “My concern is the cliff edge at £51,000. A business at £50,000 receives a significant permanent reduction while one at £52,000 receives nothing from this measure.”

“Rateable value is fundamentally a property valuation. It doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about the profitability or financial health of the business operating inside it.”

His fix is a taper. “I’d much rather see a tapered system than such a hard cut-off.”

April 2027 “wouldn’t change a decision we’re making today”

Then there is the wait. “April 2027 is also a long way away in hospitality terms. It is positive to have some certainty for the future, but it wouldn’t change a staffing or investment decision we’re making today. Those decisions must be made on the cost base we’re dealing with now.”

First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth said on Tuesday the cut was about giving businesses “the confidence to invest, grow and keep serving the communities that rely on them”. Hole’s answer is that the confidence arrives 18 months late.

Verdi’s is a case apart for now. Hole said the rates position at Knab Rock is being dealt with alongside the insurance and rebuild after July’s fire, and general manager Giuseppe Cianciarulo has warned the café may not reopen before Easter.

ROK opened in the Bracelet Bay building in 2024, in the old Castellamare, with The Lighthouse alongside it.

His verdict, in the round, is still a thumbs up. “Overall, I think it’s a positive announcement, particularly because the support is permanent rather than another short-term relief.”

He signed off with a question. “Perhaps there is more news to come?”

The regulations come forward in the autumn and need Senedd approval. What none of it touches is VAT, which is set in Westminster and remains the tax the trade has campaigned hardest on.