You may be aware that businesses and other organisations in the city centre are proposing the establishment of a Business Improvement District (BID).

The proposal they have initiated would improve their ability to fund contributions to initiatives in the centre like the Christmas Lights and the St Andrews Street taxi marshalls and make new contributions, including to add extra street cleaning to that already provided by the City Council. It would also try to improve the way the centre welcomes visitors and to provide some mutual benefit between businesses through joint procurement.

The BID would see the organisations’ current voluntary contributions to such schemes replaced by a 1% levy on business rates which all would pay according to their rateable value. For this reason all the business ratepayers will be voting on the proposal during October and the result will bind them all. The prospectus for the BID being put to business ratepayers has just been released and can be seen via this link: http://www.cbbid.co.uk/

Business ratepayers in the city centre include the City Council, the University, several colleges, as well as the many retail shops and stores: none of these has a dominant say and the result of the vote is quite open. Though it is essentially a decision about the organisations’ willingness to accept the levy system, which they alone would be paying, the Council has suggested to the BID team that they provide an opportunity for residents to find out what is being proposed.

In response, an information evening has been arranged on this coming Thursday, 20th September, from 7pm till 9pm in the Hilton Doubletree Hotel (formerly the Garden House) in Granta Place, Mill Lane. We recommend attending if you are interested to find out more.