floors of activities for all ages will include go-karting, a climbing wall, adventure golf, bowling and a virtual reality room.


▲ An 86-bedroom hotel is to be built on Morecambe’s seafront after planning approval was granted. The five-storey venue will be located on Marine Road Central opposite Eden Project Morecambe. The plans also include a restaurant, bar, coffee shop and a standalone retail unit on the ground floor.


▲ Health and fitness chain GymWorks has opened a third location after receiving a £380,000 loan from Royal Bank of Scotland and Lombard, part of the NatWest Group. The company opened its first gym in Preston in 2013, expanded into Chorley in 2017 and will now open its doors in Skelmersdale.


Centre which will use air source heat pumps, thermal storage and electrical infrastructure to create an innovative heat network providing 45 GWh of low carbon heat which will be sufficient to provide heating and hot water for nearly the entire campus.


▲ OrmIT Solutions has triumphed in an innovation competition held by US tech giant Cisco, landing a cash prize of $200,000. The Leyland firm and its cloud-based WiFi Splash Access system was the overall winner of Cisco’s Sixth Annual Partner Innovation Challenge, seeing off competition from businesses around the world.


▲ Accrington-based metal fabricator Pharma Sheet Metal has secured a £200,000 loan from Rosebud Finance. The funds have been invested in advanced machinery including CNC laser cutting, bending and milling and turning machines, along with a self-contained glass beadblast unit, allowing work which previously required outsourced production processes to be brought in-house.


▲ A £7.4m project to transform Amounderness House, the Grade II-listed former magistrates court in Preston, into offices and retail space has received planning approval. The renovation has been designed by architecture and design practice FWP for Preston City Council, will be delivered by Maple Grove Developments and will be operated by Wrkspace.


▲ Preston-based joinery business JSJ UK has undertaken a third more office refurbishments this year than the same period in 2022. Much of the demand originates from businesses looking to reimagine their workspaces in the era of hybrid and flexible working.


▲ The government has sent £21m to Lancaster University to enable it to decarbonise its campus. The funds will be invested in establishing a Low Carbon Energy


▲ Seneca Property has acquired the freehold of the 140-bedroom Premier Inn Hotel in Preston for a sum believed to be in the region of £9m. The seven-storey property was newly developed in 2011 at a reported cost in excess of £23m. It has been home to Premier Inn ever since, on a 25-year lease for a rent of £725,000 per annum.


▲ Chorley Council has completed the purchase of the town’s bus station from Lancashire County Council, taking on responsibility for its day-to-day management.


▲ Discount supermarket chain Aldi has announced that it will invest at least £12.2m in new and upgraded stores across Lancashire this year. This includes the development of its new stores coming to Skelmersdale, Bacup and Preston, as well as upgrades to its current store in Skelmersdale.


▲ Preston-based law firm Napthens has raised £40,000 to support various local initiatives such as improving the mental health of hundreds of primary school children across Lancashire. The money was raised through the Napthens Foundation through a series of challenges and events across its six offices in Merseyside, Cumbria and Lancashire.


DOWN


▼ Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses’ packing operation in Longridge was severely damaged by a huge blaze that ripped through the building. Ten crews from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service were used to bring the fire under control. The dairy, which is in Inglewhite, was not impacted and production continued as normal.


▼ Plans to refurbish Colne Market Hall, which were submitted by Pendle Council and Barnfield through their PEARL joint venture, have been rejected. Under the proposals, levelling up funds would have been invested in a transformation including a new glazed front and food


hall, but councillors say the plans were not fit for purpose and had suffered from ‘design by committee’.


▼ Businesses in the North West continued to face challenging demand conditions during November, with inflows of new work falling in the region for the seventh month running, according to NatWest’s PMI Business Activity Index. Surveyed firms commented on squeezed customer budgets, weak exports and low market confidence. That said, the rate of decline eased notably from the previous month and was the weakest since July.


Steve Markey Head of national MVL team


CONSIDERATIONS FOR BUSINESS EXIT


THROUGH AN MVL In this period of increasing living costs and taxes, when closing down a business it is important to understand tax implications when extracting funds from your company.


The standard way to extract funds is by way of dividend. Dividend tax rates are as high as 39.35 per cent.


One would ordinarily take the funds out by way of dividend and then at some point, strike the company off, whereby it is then dissolved at Companies House.


An alternative way to dissolve the company is by entering a solvent liquidation, also known as a members’ voluntary liquidation (MVL).


By doing so, you can take advantage of extracting your funds at capital tax rates, which are lower than dividend tax rates.


If you utilise a tax relief called Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR, formerly known as Entrepreneurs’ Relief), then you can extract up to £1,000,000 at a tax rate of 10 per cent, so you pay £100,000 in tax.


If you took this out by way of dividend, the tax would be £377,000.


So you are instantly saving £277,000 in tax by extracting the funds by way of MVL.


Another advantage of MVLs is that they are dealt with by a liquidator who specialises in making sure that the company is dissolved in the correct manner.


Therefore, if you are considering selling your company’s business and assets, retiring, or you simply want to start afresh in a new sector, an MVL is a tax-efficient way of achieving this.


Call us on 0161 413 4940 or visit www.leonardcurtis.co.uk


LANCASHIREBUSINES SV IEW.CO.UK


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