TOMORROW’S emergency Budget could hamper Liverpool’s recovery if Chancellor George Osborne does not give a helping hand to the commercial property sector, the British Property Federation (BPF) is warning.

The BPF says the city’s prosperity will be in peril if the Chancellor ignores growth, enterprise and possible new schemes for financing infrastructure.

It is also calling on business secretary Vince Cable to keep his promise to re-introduce full empty property rate relief.

While the £1bn Liverpool One scheme continues to prosper, the BPF claims other retail areas in the city are suffering.

Its figures show the number of shop vacancies is 4.5% above the national average, reaching 16.84% in December, 2009. It warns that the situation could be made worse if the Government fails to reinstate full empty property relief for vacant commercial and industrial properties.

One of the other key demands in the trade body’s Budget submission centres around an innovative financing model for financing infrastructure vital for big regeneration projects – tax increment finance (TIF).

TIF was pioneered in US President Barack Obama’s home city of Chicago, and allows cash to be borrowed against future increases in business taxes and used to pay for infrastructure needed now to ensure development can happen. This, in turn, generates the revenues necessary to pay back the forward funding, creating new jobs and opportunities.

Since the developer is able to under-write any risk, it poses no threat to the public sector, which may be unwilling to take on more debt in the current climate.