Manual for District Centre Managers - the ATCM

26
service with regards to street cleaning from
Wednesday to Sunday. This “caretaker”
service would include picking-up litter, removing
fly-posting and washing street furniture.
Pavements would undergo a steam clean
treatment twice a year to remove ingrained
dirt and chewing-gum.
Incidents of graffiti would be removed from
both public and private property.
Additional floral displays would be installed
for both the summer and winter seasons.
This would include the provision of
two, fully-dressed and illuminated Christmas
trees.
To generate footfall:
Marketing and promotions activity would
be increased both in scale and frequency.
To tackle crime that affects businesses:
A full-time member of staff would deliver a
partnership initiative between businesses
and statutory agencies (the Council and the
Police). Intelligence on known and suspected
offenders would be collected and
shared. As part of this, a radio system
would be operated. The intelligence would
also be used by the partnership to issue orders
that excluded individuals from the BID
area.
Measures
Four measures were taken to ensure a successful
ballot. Firstly, to mitigate the risk of those
businesses located outside the core retail area
voting against the proposal, the BID area was
reduced (to cover 436 rateable value properties).
The second measure sought to encourage support
for the BID proposal. A series of demonstration
activities were undertaken over the
course of a year, funded by £ 250,000 (280,000
Euro) secured from the national Neighbourhood
Renewal Fund.
Thirdly, to identify whether the proposed BID
activity would be supported by businesses, an
interim ballot was held. Whilst 63% were in
favour, they only represented 37% of the total
rateable value of properties.
The final measure aimed to encourage voter
turnout by those businesses in favour of the
proposal. Extensive, targeted lobbying was undertaken.
In the context of the interim ballot
results and the need to raise representation of
the rateable value of premises, big businesses
were a particular focus.
Results
The BID gained a formal mandate. 76% of voters
were in favour. They represented 56% of
the total rateable value of properties. There
was a turnout from businesses of 45%.
The creation of the BID has allowed £ 790,805
(890,000 Euro) to be raised from business
ratepayers over five years. Together with a contribution
of £ 208,904 (230,000 Euro) from the
Town Centre Partnership, a total investment of
£ 999,709 (1.1 million Euro) has been made
available to raise the economic viability of the
Town Centre.
Transferability
One of the main lessons to be learnt from the
creation of the BID is that resources need to be
targeted. The BID area was reduced to leave
out those businesses that could vote against