Port-based businesses in Pembrokeshire are facing job losses and potential bankruptcy because of what local MP Stephen Crabb has called a “monstrous injustice”.

Several shops, offices and industrial sites in Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock could be put under huge financial pressure if controversial changes in UK port business rates are forced through by the Government.

Milford’s Waterfront Art Gallery has been given a backdated bill for a liability of more than £19,000.

Port Engineering, also based at Milford docks, has been hit with a similar amount and one major port customer is facing a £1.2million charge.

In the past business rates were paid by port authorities and recharged to occupiers through annual port dues.

The new system, put into place by the Government’s Valuation Office Agency (VOA), has changed this so that firms pay an individual rate based on the size of the premises.

The VOA has only recently revealed the new rates in Pembrokeshire but, in a move that has shocked tenants across the country, these rent hikes have been backdated to 2005, when the new valuations were due to be completed.

Port Engineering manager Adrian Owens said: “If we had been given notification that this would have been backdated that far we would have accrued for it.

“We are looking at a bill of just under £20,000.

“With the situation as it is it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“I wouldn’t say it will put us out of business, but we are going to have to look at our workforce.”

In a Westminster debate last week MP Stephen Crabb told members that small and large businesses in Pembrokeshire could suffer because of the rate increases and he called for the Government to cancel the back payments.

Ted Sangster, port authority chief executive, explains what the situation means for port businesses: “Milford Haven Port Authority has only recently received the results of the revaluation exercise undertaken by the valuation office – the port is one of the last in the UK to be informed.

“This is a serious and threatening issue to many businesses located within the port.

“As an organisation, we are lobbying Westminster through the British Ports Association (BPA) and the Chamber of Shipping with our partner ports and ferry companies in Wales, and are soon to meet with representatives of the Welsh Assembly.

“As well as now facing rate demands which they did not receive before, our tenants are also facing backdated demands for payments from 2005 of which they had no previous knowledge and had therefore run and priced their businesses accordingly. “In Milford Docks there is a 30% increase in business rates overall required going forward compared to the previous situation. Our bill going forward is the same as it was previously so we are neither getting a rebate to offset some of the extra costs being levied by the new system nor are we in a position to reduce the rents to our tenants to help them to meet the extra costs they are facing.

“We are looking at potentially serious consequences of this backdating — at a time when enough small businesses and entrepreneurs across the county are struggling to keep their heads above water.”