OWNERS of small businesses frustrated by bureaucracy now have an alternative to kicking the cat – a new website called www.redtaperants.co.uk .

The website, which goes live today, is the brainchild of small-business owner Sylvia Tidy-Harris, who realised that small and medium-size business owners such as herself were feeling increasingly powerless in the face of growing levels of red tape and government bureaucracy.

Tidy-Harris, the founder of menspeakers.co.uk, a speaking agency based at Ibstock, Leicestershire, said it was time small-business owners fought back.

“I have started up the red tape rant website to give small and medium-size businesses a voice. We need this because nobody is taking any notice of us,” she said.

“The amount of red tape has increased dramatically in the past few years and legislation has become a lot more complicated. The government is always going on about how important enterprise is to this country but the rules and regulations that appear constantly are made by people in government who have never run a business in their life.”

Today’s opening of the website comes one day before 40 changes or amendments to existing workplace legislation take effect. These include an increase in the national minimum wage, an increase in holiday entitle-ment and changes to flexible working regulations.

In the past few years small-business owners have had to deal with more complex employment legislation, extended maternity and paternity leave, amendments to working-time regulations, health-and-safety laws and adjustments to the workplace required by the Disability Discrimination Act.

Anyone running a small or medium-size business is welcome to post comments on the rant website as soon as they have registered.

A dossier of all comments posted on the website will be compiled and presented to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

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