Hastings council agrees over £100k in rate relief
Hastings & St.Lenoards Obersver. 16th July 2011
http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/ ... _1_2866135



WIN!

Just posted on from WWP: http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/ ... st-1818533

Dox from the council meeting on 11th July:

http://www.hastings.gov.uk/meetings/mee ... Relief.htm



Rateable value of the last known property of Narconon Hastings/St.Leonards at Albany Road, St.Lenoards, is around £46,000 and by the business rates calculator it comes out at just over £20,000 for the annual business rates bill.
Councils can grant 80% mandatory and up to 20% discretionary relief.
From the language of the dox it sounds like they got the 80% "by the book" mandatory relief by virtue of Narconon currently being a registered charity in the UK but the council used its discretion and rejected the application for the remaining 20% (which represents around £4,000 per annum that the cult will definately lose out on).
That might be peanuts to David Miscavige but we now have this citable newsmedia gem: "..... the authority could find no evidence that its work helped the local community". This is a useful piece of information to have if fighting against local planning/zoning applications for Narconon facilities as one more reason why they should not be there.

Btw, previously it had been reported that Narconon's tenancy on property in St.Leonards was due end and the building sold by the landlord (see: viewtopic.php?t=32823 )
So I don't know what happened with that, e.g. the tenancy has been extended, or whether we are talking about some other/addtional property in the area (but I doubt that considering the expense of installing the saunas etc).
[Local Marcab agents will probably confirm the situation later].

Also, one reason for not granting discretionary relief on the basis that they have no benefit to the local community could be due to the fact that the property at St.Leonards is not, in reality, offering residential rehab because, according to this interesting article about Narconon Hastings/St.Lenoards previously posted on OCMB Oct 2010: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=32916 there is some discrepancy over that residency status. Official reports say one thing and the cult's website says another.

I was initially excited by this, especially when I read it in the Hastings Observer.However a few thougths. I am under the impression that Paul Merton owns the Narconon Building , Hastings and was supposdedly renting it to Narconon Hastings for a nominal rental. This may be total crap, but so far my source has been spot on.

The fact that Narconon Hastings has been closed down is a source of delight and joy.
Scientologists want WIN, Yeah,I finally had one!
It was a long time coming!

The thing is though, did it actually close? Why were they applying for business rates relief for 2011-2012 if they didn't have a property? As previously reported it did appear on austingray.co.uk estate agents auction page catalogue from 29-7-2010 but the auction results page doesn't show it. So I'm wondering if the owner pulled it out of the auction altogether and the tenancy to Narconon has been extended. The only other explanation for Narconon applying to Hastings council for business rates relief for 2011-2011 is that they found another building nearby (but haven't updated their website).
See also this parallel thread on WWP where this is also discussed: http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/ ... st-1819548
We could really do with someone local finding out if they are indeed still there at that location on Albany Road or somewhere else in the same Hastings/St.Leonards council area.

Not sure what is going on, last week I visited the area and the "For Sale" signs had been removed , but not gone, they were placed behind the wall.On the left hand side of the building there is a panneled window frame and some of the window panes were missing.

As of today, they are still in business at 2 Albany Road.

Narconon Hastings still has it's website up. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get up there for some time, however, if you phone their number it redirects you now to a vodaphone answer machine. Says nothing about Narconon, just to leave a message.

Couldn't think of a suitable one, other than "Have you shut down yet?" Needless to say, I didn't leave a message.

I could think of a potentially very useful thing to ask when calling them. I won't say here on the forum but you can PM me if at any time you want to try them again.