A COUNCIL which has been paying the wrong business rate on a property for the past nine years is to receive a rebate of almost £1m.
Darlington Borough Council appealed against the rates it was asked to pay for the Dolphin Leisure Centre in 1995.
Now the authority has been told by the Inland Revenue that it has won its appeal and will receive a rebate of between £90,000 and £100,000 for each year it has overpaid.
A council spokesman said the money was welcome but represented less than one per cent of the authority's budget.
"It's good news and it's very useful. It all goes into the pot but won't be spent on anything specific," he said.
Other councils across the country are also likely to receive rebates - after a tribunal on the rateable value of local authority leisure centres.
A spokesman for the Valuation Office Agency, the executive agency of the Inland Revenue which deals with rates, said Darlington's appeal was put on hold until the outcome of the tribunal.
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