Gigs at Wembley Stadium and Arena could soon become more expensive as Brent Council looks to introduce a ticket tax on sales to go alongside a visitor tax.
The council passed a motion earlier this month to introduce a new tax on visitors staying overnight in the borough to help fund improvements in the area.
The local authority is looking to leverage the growing event scene in Brent – with headline acts like Coldplay and Oasis performing at Wembley Stadium this summer – to generate additional funds so the benefits are “felt by all residents”.
Council Leader, Cllr Muhammed Butt, has since written to the government to explore the possibility of adding a “small levy” to help support grassroots music and cultural institutions, to help “create the next generation of acts to fill our stadiums and arenas”.
In the letter sent to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, Cllr Butt urged the government to give the council the legal powers to add a “fair and modest discretionary charge” on hotel and short-stay accommodation.
He also asked for the government to “explore the feasibility” of adding an additional fee to ticket prices.
Brent Council wants “further devolution of fiscal powers” so it is able to invest locally raised revenue back into the community.
In the letter, the council claims residents believe there is a “critical funding gap” and have complained they “do not see a proportionate share of the benefits from Wembley’s success”.
While the council suggested the increasing number of events is a “cause for celebration”, it added gigs also bring enormous and growing pressure on local services, such as waste management, public safety, and environmental enforcement.
The letter add: “Brent Council believes that a locally collected, ring-fenced visitor levy – as successfully implemented across much of Europe – is a fair and progressive way to ensure tourism and high-footfall events contribute sustainably to the communities that host them.”
In England, neither the central government nor local councils currently have the power to introduce a tourist tax – primary legislation would be needed to allow it.
A legal workaround of establishing an Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID), such as those in Manchester and Liverpool, is possible but it must be agreed via a referendum of local businesses and the levy falls on business rate payers rather than visitors.
Brent Council, alongside other local authority leaders and mayors, are calling on the government to introduce new laws that would give it the “firepower” to generate additional income from tourism.
