City leaders claim the "agricultural use" of the office is a "tactic" to avoid paying business rates.

A city centre office building has been home to a snail farm for more than a year, in what council bosses allege is an attempt to avoid tax.

About 15 covered crates - containing as few as two snails each - have been kept on the lower ground floor of 9 Dale Street, in Liverpool, since 2023.

Under current law, this could qualify as “agricultural use” and this part of the building would arguably be exempt from business rates.

The firm renting the space said it was a legitimate snail farming operation.

The company, Snai1 Primary Products 2023 Ltd, shares its sole director, Terence Ball, with a company called BoyceBrook based in Ribchester, Lancashire.

BoyceBrook’s website says its team “has a proven track record of minimising the liability for empty property rates” and describes the company as the “Canceller of the Exchequer”.

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Each crate contains two snails, according to L’Escargotiere, another company operated by Mr Ball, also based in Ribchester.

Its website says the number of snails per crate is kept to a minimum to avoid “cannibalism, group sex and snail orgies”.

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    27 days ago

    I actually farmed snails, no lie, sold Mystery Snails on Aquabid.com and eBay. Shipping got to be a pain and I was only making about $9 per order. You have to have cold packs in the summer and hot packs in the winter, so there’s that as well.

    It was fun, but if you want to raise multiple colors, you have to have multiple tanks and cull them properly, which I didn’t have the heart to do.

    LOL, just checked aquabid and the same seller is still dominating the Mystery Snail market since I did it 10 years ago. You go Gu2high!

    Damn. Now I’m thinking about ranching some more springtails. Throw 'em in a plastic container with water, lump charcoal and a tiny speck of fish food, BAM, a thousand more pop out.