Rates bill prompts pub demolition

A pub was knocked down by its enraged owner after he was sent a bill for £8,000 in unpaid business rates and council tax for the months it stood empty.

Mac McCullagh decided to close the failing Lightning pub in Perivale, London, after the tenant pulled out in February because it was no longer making any money.

McCullagh claims he immediately told Ealing Borough Council that the pub was no longer operating, but he was still saddled with an £8,000 bill. He is now refusing to pay despite being dragged through the courts.

The pub was torn down to prevent more bills from mounting up — and McCullagh has erected a large billboard on the site making his feelings clear.

"The only way to deal with this was to knock the building over," said McCullagh. "Empty sites aren't earning any money, so how does the Government think it can take a slice of the cake that isn't there?"

He believes many similar sites could go the same way as other property owners try to avoid rates on empty buildings — a process that he says scarred the country when a similar policy was adopted in the 1960s.

McCullagh said: "What angers me is the total lack of common sense from the Government. They don't think things through and they're blind to having made the same mistakes before."

McCulloch plans to build a new showroom for his storage firm Vanguard on the site of the Lightning.