A business that lost thousands of pounds in trade because of the foot-and-mouth crisis has had its claim for rate relief turned down.

The owner of pottery firm Baltic Trader says he does not understand why Lewes District Council rejected his application for discretionary relief after inviting him to apply for it in the first place.

Will Rogers was sent a letter offering him the chance to defer payment of his non-domestic rates if he could prove trade had been seriously affected by the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

Mr Rogers, whose business in West Street, Lewes, imports and sells pottery from Poland, said: "I would never have applied if I hadn't been invited to but I thought I had a clear-cut case.

"Our biggest show of the year is the Ardingly Show in June, which was cancelled because of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

"Last year we made about £3,000 in takings there and about the same amount again as a follow-up after the show.

"The cancellation left a bit of a hole in our cash flow and that was the basis of my claim.

"I got a letter back saying councillors were not satisfied the prime reason for the deterioration in the finances of the business could be attributed to foot-and-mouth.

"It was a bit insulting because we have been doing very well despite floods, foot-and-mouth and the fuel crisis.

"But we had a bit of a cash-flow situation and when we were offered the chance to defer paying the rates I took the time to fill in the forms because I thought it was clear cut.

"It's a bit irritating to be refused but I'm not that amazed. The council seems to have no empathy for business.

"We were flooded out last October but were only offered rate relief to the end of the month. We'd hardly got things cleaned up by then."

Mr Rogers said many businesses were suffering from a significant fall in the number of foreign visitors.

He said: "August has been our quietest month since January and it was our best month last year.

"There are hardly any Americans around at all and they are usually high-spending visitors."

The council has the discretion to award up to 100 per cent rate relief to businesses seriously affected by the foot-and-mouth outbreak under Section 49 of the 1988 Finance Act.

A council spokeswoman said she could not comment on individual cases but said the Government had set tight guidelines on how the special hardship-relief scheme was to be applied and who the likely groups of claimants would be, for example farm-related businesses.

She added: "One area where the council could and did provide immediate help was by rescheduling payments of business rates when requests for help were received. The council actively publicised the availability of this scheme."