BUSINESS rate relief for small businesses, problems with car parking and changes to future meetings were all up for discussion at the latest meeting of Okehampton and District Chamber of Trade.

The meeting at the Fountain Inn on March 30 saw Gail Turner, Lyn Evans and Caroline Mott confirmed on the chamber’s committee as secretary, vice chair and interim treasurer respectively.

The meeting, chaired by new chamber of trade chairperson Linda Harper, covered a range of topics affecting the town’s business community.

One hot topic was a new small business rate relief. A trader can get business rate relief if their property’s rateable value is less than £15,000 from April 2017, or if their business uses only one property.

Linda Harper said a large number of Okehampton businesses in the town centre ‘could be a lot better off than they would have been historically’ under the changes.

However, she urged business owners to apply for the rate relief as it is not automatically applied.

The chamber of trade is to start having meetings every month, alternating between the traditional meetings with an agenda and a more relaxed meeting, focused on networking and a guest speaker.

Other topics discussed included the marketing of the town through the Everything Okehampton website, looking at the result of a West Devon report into the Okehampton business community done in November and planning for the next food and music festival fundraiser, which will be a quiz night in the London Inn on Sunday, April 16 at 8pm.