A NORTH Yorkshire trader is still refusing to pay thousands of pounds in business rates - despite threats that bailiffs will be round any day.

Geoff Leason, of Leason Sheds, Kirkbymoorside, says he is adamant he will withhold almost £5,000 in rates until Ryedale District Council sorts out a row over the address of his business.

The Leasons received a letter from the council on September 4, warning them a liability order had been issued by magistrates and they had seven days to pay their rates to avoid a visit by the council's bailiff.

But Mr Leason has told the Evening Press he will not budge.

He said: "We will pay when we come to a reasonable decision that they will take us seriously enough to consider compensation, which I think is quite justified under the circumstances."

"I am not having anybody in the council dictate to me what I should and should not do.

"If they carry on as they are now I will shut the lot down and move the business somewhere else."

"When we started the business last year the address was plot seven, Dove Way.

"Since then we have been told it is number 46, then it was Ings East, it has been called the Kirby Mills Industrial Estate instead of Kirkby Mills, and our post code has changed from YO62 6NR to YO62 6QR."

Council officer Dave Summers, who is responsible for street naming and numbering, said it was not uncommon for a new industrial estate to have a change of address.

"The number seven might have had its origins in a plot number, which is not the same as a building number. It is not normal practice for a plot number to remain. The plan was to number the whole estate, both the former English Industrial Estate and the council's land. It would have been even more confusing if plot seven on the English Industrial part had decided they would want to be that number."

As the Evening Press went to print no representative from Ryedale District Council revenues department had visited Leason Sheds.

Updated: 11:48 Monday, September 16, 2002