URGENT action is needed before crippling tax rises wipe out small firms, business leaders have warned members of the new Cheshire East Council.

At a business breakfast meeting at Mere Golf and Country Club on Tuesday, business owners and managers from across East Cheshire told council leaders that the Government was heaping more misery on to struggling local firms by pushing ahead with plans to increase business rates by five per cent in April at a time of economic recession.

They also voiced concerns over the possible introduction of the controversial Business Rates Supplement Bill which will allow town halls to increase business rates on local firms by levying a supplementary rate on top of current bills from April 2010.

Leader of the council, Wesley Fitzgerald, said there was very little that the new authority could do to stop the increases but promised to put their concerns in a letter to the treasury.

He said: "We can extort and shout and scream but that is all we can do. We can however send an official note to the treasury saying that this is not on for businesses in East Cheshire in the current economic climate."

Councillor Fitzgerald also told business leaders that the new council wants to support local firms and make sure it does everything it can to minimise the difficulties they might face.

"The council continues to invest in partnerships with the Chambers of Commerce that provides practical support to local businesses.  Businesses should also consider their entitlement to relief from payment of business rates, particularly through application for Small Business Rate Relief, Discretionary Relief and reductions in rates for partly occupied premises."

John Dunnning, chief executive of the South Cheshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that managers had to stay positive and reasses their businesses so that they are ready to take advantage of opportunities when the recession ends.

"We should not talk ourselves further into recession. I believe the media have contributed more to knocking consumer confidence and making a career out of doom and gloom and it’s time we took a different attitude."