In a joint statement<\/a>, the Mayors of Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester, London, West Yorkshire, the West Midlands and the North East, urged the government to consider including enabling legislation in the forthcoming English Devolution Bill or a specific Finance Bill, which would give local authorities the freedom to design and introduce a locally administered visitor levy. Currently, English legislation does not allow cities to do so.<\/p>\nIn the Liverpool City Region, which hosts over 60 million visitors annually, a visitor levy could raise nearly \u00a311m per year. In April, members of the Liverpool Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID) agreed to proposals to add \u00a32 to the bills of those staying in city hotels.<\/p>\n
According to the ABID, a \u00a32 city visitor charge is projected to bring in \u00a39.2m over two years, of which \u00a36.7m will go towards supporting the city\u2019s visitor economy through a subvention fund. In their joint letter to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Mr Addy, Mr Magee and BID chiefs from across the country said the Mayors\u2019 argument was in fact for visitor levies to be \u201cprivately raised, but publicly spent.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Bill](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_Bill-Addy-2023_BID.jpg\")
Bill Addy, the CEO of Liverpool BID Company(Image: Liverpool BID Company)<\/p>\n
They added: \u201cThe role that the private sector plays in cities and towns is critical. It is the hotel industry that has led on the implementation of the visitor levy, and that continues to push for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt comes as a result of their understanding and experience of their economy and its viability. This isn\u2019t to increase turnover; it is to increase spend locally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaders argued that the private sector should not be used to plug a hole in local government funding \u201cwith increased taxation applied to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter added: \u201cThis is an industry committed to the long-term resilience and growth of their local economies, but it is one beleaguered by high energy costs, an antiquated rates system, increased staff costs and a sustained absence of local strategy for survival.<\/p>\n
![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1749831251_983_0_Steve-RotheramMayor-of-the-Liverpool-City-Regionwith-the-Glider-Future-Rapid-Transit-Buson-displa..webp\")
Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, onboard the Glider Future Rapid Transit Bus, on display at Anfield(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an industry that is promised a say, but is repeatedly asked to pay more, to do more and to see decisions made locally, regionally and nationally that do not work for the visitor economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said while there was support within the hotel industry for a visitor levy, \u201cthere is little support for it as a politically-led project\u201d adding that it could threaten \u201cthat a private sector-led initiative will be undermined by another tax system that creates further division between the public and private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BID chiefs said: \u201cIt risks unpicking all of the good work done by the private sector in building a flourishing and thriving visitor economy among some of our hardest hit communities, and we would appeal to government to not introduce these powers without detailed consultation with the sector and consideration of the likely negative impact of any new powers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An open letter has been sent to the government after Metro Mayors asked for additional powersGolden hour on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,51,393,4884,10238,179,1835,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-181494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-hotels","13":"tag-liverpool","14":"tag-liverpool-combined-authority","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114676948507325261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Golden](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_Golden-hour-on-the-Liverpool-waterfront-Photo-by-Colin-Lane.jpg\")
Golden hour on the Liverpool waterfront(Image: Colin Lane\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n