Business Club: September 2026
The monthly newsletter for businesses in and around Shepperton.
Hello 👋
Thank you to everyone who came to Business Connect yesterday. Good turnout, good conversations, and a few new faces. The next one is Thursday 15th October, same place, same time. Hopefully see you there, and if you enjoyed the last one, bring a friend next time.
The free local business directory now has 133 businesses on it. If you run a B2C business and aren't on it yet , get yourself listed! Did I mention it's free?
Gareth
133 businesses, eleven categories
The Local Businesses directory is free to be on and always will be. Over the summer I walked around Shepperton, checked loads of premises against Google Maps and other live sources, and put up lots of businesses that are actually trading.
This is where Shepperton looks for what it needs. Shops, cafés, pubs, garages, salons, vets, nurseries, care, storage, tradespeople. Anything a resident can walk into, ring up or book. If the public buys from you, you belong on it.
The listings were built from public information, so do check yours. Reply to this email if you see anything wrong and we will fix it.
Local news
The Business Awards are on 2nd October, and it is the last one
The eighth and final Spelthorne Business Awards ceremony is on Friday 2nd October, with Shepperton Studios as headline sponsor.
Shortlisted for Best Business in Shepperton & Charlton: Level 5 Therapies, Mullen Property Services, Thames Laundry & Dry Cleaning and The CMO Legacy. Hamhaugh Hops is up for Best New Start-Up, and Thames Laundry appears again in Best Small Business.
We are shortlisted for Best Social Impact, so treat our neutrality with suspicion. Good luck to everyone on the list, and come and find us on the night.
The new council has a chief executive
Susan Halliwell, currently chief executive at Bracknell Forest, will lead the new West Surrey Council. Surrey's councils confirmed on 8th September that reorganisation is still on track for 1st April 2027.
Nothing changes for you before then. Spelthorne still handles business rates, licensing and waste. The part to watch is the corporate strategy the new authority is drafting now, because that sets business support and planning policy across the whole of West Surrey. The name is not settled either: councillors voted in July to change it to West Surrey and South Middlesex Council, and that is with government for approval.
Business rates: the relief you used to claim is now built in
If you run a shop, café, pub or salon, this one is worth a look at your bill.
Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief, the discount you had to apply for every year, ended on 31st March 2026. In its place are permanently lower multipliers, applied automatically:
| Rateable value | Multiplier | |
|---|---|---|
| RHL, small | Under £51,000 | 38.2p |
| RHL, standard | £51,000 to £499,999 | 43.0p |
| Non-RHL, small | Under £51,000 | 43.2p |
| Non-RHL, standard | £51,000 to £499,999 | 48.0p |
The RHL rate is five pence in the pound lower, and nobody will ring you if your property has been put on the wrong one. Check which multiplier your bill is using. If it jumped at the revaluation, look up Transitional Relief and the Supporting Small Business scheme, which caps increases and now covers businesses that lost the old RHL discount.
Spelthorne is still who you call if it looks wrong.
Big Tree Night: book now, not in November
Big Tree Night is the biggest evening of footfall the High Street gets all year, and it is run entirely by volunteers. This year it's happening on Wednesday 9th December.
Programme adverts and stalls close early, because the programme is distributed at least a fortnight before the night. Christmas trees are £45 for a four foot tree with white LED lights above your shopfront, installed the third or fourth weekend in November. If you are on the High Street and you skip it, yours is the dark shopfront.
Both are on bigtreenight.uk. We have written up everything else about the night, including road closures and bus diversions, at thesheppertonian.uk/big-tree-night.
Employment law lands next month
Two dates.
1st October. The time limit for employment tribunal claims doubles from three months to six. A former employee has twice as long to bring a claim, so your records need to last twice as long.
30th October. The duty to prevent sexual harassment is strengthened and extended across the other protected characteristics. It covers harassment by third parties, which for anyone with a shopfront means customers as well as staff.
The test is reasonable steps, and what counts as reasonable scales with your size. Nobody expects a four-person business to do what a four-hundred-person one does. They do expect you to have thought about it, written something down and told your staff. A short policy, a risk assessment and one team conversation covers most small employers.
The Acas consultation on the revised grievance and disciplinary code closes next Wednesday, 23rd September, if you want a say. Guidance is at acas.org.uk and equalityhumanrights.com.
If you would rather hand it to someone who does this for a living, Emma Woods at EJ HR Solutions is on the directory and is round the corner.
Out and about in October
Save Money, Build Business Resilience, Wednesday 7th October, 10am to 4pm, Riverside Business Centre, Guildford. Free, aimed at SMEs, on cutting energy costs and planning for climate impact. Includes a year's licence and training for the Climate Essentials carbon tool. Booking through zerocarbonguildford.org.
Surrey Business Expo, Thursday 8th October, 10am to 3pm, Mercedes-Benz World, Weybridge. Nineteenth year, free entry, free parking, and about fifteen minutes up the road. Open to anyone from sole traders to established firms. Register for a free ticket at businessinsurrey.co.uk. Stands are still available if you would rather exhibit than wander.
Shepperton Business Connect, Thursday 15th October, 5pm to 7pm, The Ferry Coffee Shop at Shepperton Lock. Co-hosted with nikibakes. Free, no membership. Reply and we will look out for you.
Spelthorne's own business support programme is still free to any business in the borough and runs to the end of the year, covering one-to-one mentoring and workshops. Register at mygrowthpod.com/spelthorne.
The Sheppertonian Business Club
A welcome to EJ HR Solutions, who joined this month. Emma is in Professional Services on the directory, and given what arrives on 30th October, an HR consultant in the village is a handy thing to have.
Business Club members at the moment: The Ferry Coffee Shop, Island Motors, Meon Media and EJ HR Solutions. They carry a badge and a logo, and they sit at the top of their category search results on the Business Directory.
Two things you can now buy without speaking to anyone:
Post a job in Thursday's newsletter, from £10. Another £15 puts it at the top of the jobs section. Pay online, no conversation required.
Feature an event in the weekly What's On, £10. Putting your event on the community calendar is free, and stays free. The £10 is only if you want it in the newsletter as well.
The rest: Listed is free, Supported is £50 a month, Produced is £350 a month. Supported includes two job or event listings a month, so it covers itself at three postings.
From The Sheppertonian this month
The What's On newsletter has gone out every Thursday as usual. Adding your event to the calendar is free, and we would rather have too many than too few.
There is a new page for Big Tree Night, covering the date, road closures, bus diversions, parking and how to get a stall or a tree. It sits alongside the Shepperton Village Fair page on the Events page under Annual Events.
Podcast episodes
Before you go
The directory is free, it has 133 businesses on it, and yours is probably one of them. Check it reads the way you would want it to.
See you soon.
Gareth
The Sheppertonian is produced by The Sound Boutique.
Sources
- Spelthorne Business Awards 2026 finalists
- Spelthorne Borough Council news, items dated 8th and 11th September 2026
- West Surrey Council, Surrey LGR Hub
- Revaluation 2026, Runnymede Borough Council
- Employment Rights Act 2025: October 2026 implementation dates, Blake Morgan
- Surrey Business Expo, 8th October
- Save Money, Build Business Resilience, 7th October
- Big Tree Night detail: bigtreenight.uk
The Sheppertonian Business Club newsletter is published once a month and is free to read. To find out about the paid tiers of the Business Club, visit thesheppertonian.uk/business-club.
