Snails Of The Week

I hesitate to write about snails, an earlier piece attracting the attention of a journalist from The Washington Post and causing a bit of a furore. Nevertheless, this is a story that I could not resist.

Business rates in Britain are paid by the tenant when the building is occupied and by the owner when the premises lie vacant. If the owner runs what is termed an “agricultural facility”, then neither party has to pay. With occupation rates on office space still recovering from the post-Covid working from home epidemic, some enterprising owners are turning to hiring out their space to “snail farms”.

Heliciculture is a relatively quick business to set up, requiring little capital and running costs are low and has a low environmental impact. A study by Scotland’s Rural College estimated that one person working full-time could cultivaste around 200,00 snails. Many UK snail farms concentrate on producing edible snails, especially the Helix Aspersa Escargot, also known as the Petit Gris.

However, snail farms are also being used solely for tax efficiency reasons, often consisting of a few sealed boxes containing a handful of the gastropods which are then reared, enough for the owners to claim an exemption from business rates, the ultimatr in shell companies, you might say.

The practice is becoming so rife that Westminster Council have calculated that the ruse has cost them more than £280,000 in lost revenue. Where there is a tax, someone will always find a loop hole.