This section deals solely with local authority sports and leisure centres including tennis centres that are operated on a non-commercial basis. Private sports and leisure centres are a separate class, covered by Rating Manual: section 6 part 3 - section 965. Tennis centres are covered in Rating Manual: section 6 part 3 - section 1040.
List description
Sports and leisure centre Scat code: 257(Dry only) primary description code LC2
Scat code: 258(Wet and Dry) primary description code LC2
Swimming pool and premises Scat code: 272 primary description code LC6
Tennis centre Scat code 277 primary description code LC7
This is a specialist class and responsibility for valuation will lie with the National Valuation Unit (NVU). Queries of a complex nature arising from the valuation of individual properties should be referred to the NVU class facilitator via the class co-ordination team (CCT).
The CCT has overall responsibility for the co-ordination of this class.
The CCT is responsible for the approach to, the accuracy and consistency of valuations of Local authority sports centres and will produce practice notes outlining the valuation basis for revaluation and provide advice as necessary during the life of a rating list.
Caseworkers have a responsibility to
5.1 Sports centres and swimming pools are sui-generis classes and consequently, as a general rule, only evidence relating to hereditaments in the same mode or category of use is pertinent.
See:Scottish and Newcastle (Retail) Ltd v Williams (VO) RA 119 and the subsequent Court of Appeal decision Williams (VO) v Scottish and Newcastle Retail and Allied domecq.And Dawkins (VO) v Royal Leamington Spa BC and Warwickshire County Council (1961) RVR 291.
See Rating Manual: section 3 part 2 (paragraph 9) - material change of circumstancesincluding mode or category
5.2 The leading case on the valuation approach to local authority sports and leisure centres is Eastbourne Borough Council and Wealden District Council v Allen (VO) RA 2001 P273
The Lands Tribunal (Upper Tribunal-Lands Chamber) valued two local authority leisure centres on the contractors basis and rejected the ratepayers valuation based on a percentage of receipts including subsidy provided to pay the outgoings. A fundamental difficulty with the ratepayers method was that there was no apparent reason why the amount that the hypothetical landlord and tenant would agree on as a rent should be related in some identifiable way , or at all, to the totality of the outgoings, and although the contractors basis has its limitations , it was a method with a clear intellectual justification, it was long established and widely understood by rating valuers, and it was used for a wide range of local authority hereditaments for which there was no rental evidence or for which a profits basis valuation could not be made. The Tribunal rejected the contention of the ratepayers that an adjustment be made at stage 5 of the contractors basis to reflect ability to pay holding that each of the appellant authorities attached considerable importance to the services provided by its leisure centre as a popular recreational facility for its residents and would find the money to pay the rent rather than close the facilities. The Tribunal also rejected comparison with private leisure centres as their assessments /rents provided no indication of what a local authority would be prepared to pay in rent for a leisure centre it operated for socio-economic reasons.
6.1 Unit of assessment
(i) It is essential that prior to embarking upon a valuation of a sports and leisure centre the hereditament is correctly identified. It should not be assumed, for example that a shop, caf, beauty clinic, crche, physiotherapist, clothing /equipment or other commercial undertaking within the confines of the centre are occupied by the same undertaking that occupies the remainder of the centre. Many centres are now managed by trusts established specifically to take advantage of the fiscal advantages that such a status brings with it, not least partial or total relief from rating liability. However as to run a commercial undertaking such as a shop or caf would undermine their charitable status a separate legal entity (a trading company) is created to undertake the leisure centres com