Southport BID Board Announce Arrangements For New Five-Year Term

Southport BID Board Announce Arrangements For New Five-Year Term

The Board of Directors of Southport Business Improvement District have announced the arrangements for a new five-year BID.

The current BID term comes to an end on 31st October 2019 with any continuation dependent on the outcome of a successful postal ballot due take place in March 2019.  If the ballot is in favour the new BID will run from 1st November 2019 until 31st October 2024.

The new BID is classed as “new” because it will be operating under a different set of arrangements from the current BID.  That separates it from a straightforward renewal BID.

The new arrangements agreed by the Board increases the threshold at which the levy becomes payable from £2000 to £7000 and introduces a cap of £20,000 on the maximum amount of levy payable by a single business.  

The new BID will also be expanded to include the commercial and professional sectors in line with other BIDs across the UK.   There will also be some amendments to the BID boundary to make it more tightly focused on the town centre.

The BID’s current annual budget of approximately £500,000 is used to deliver a variety of projects including advertising campaigns promoting the town, delivering the Christmas lights and the switch-on ceremony, managing and supporting events, replacing and maintaining the tree lights, managing and maintaining the shop-watch radio link, employing Taxi Marshalls at weekends, installing flower displays, and establishing and managing the “Shopping in Southport” and “Southport Independents” websites.

The BID also campaigns on issues facing the town centre and was recently been successful in persuading Sefton Council to reinstate the 30-minute parking option.  

The Board of Directors say:

“BIDs take time to develop.  That’s especially the case for BIDs starting out in their first term. Our BID was established in November 2014 and set up as a commercially-run, private, not-for-profit company for an initial five-year term.  That term comes to an end on 31stOctober 2019.

“We’ve listened to our smaller independents and, following a number of recommendations, have raised the levy threshold so they won’t have to pay.  However, they will still play a vital role in helping us with new ideas.  And, of course, they will still benefit from the activities that we put on.

“The new changes will reduce the number of businesses eligible to vote from 950 to around 740 delivering an annual budget of £440,000.  Whilst that’s a reduction on our current budget it’s still a significant amount to spend on activities to improve our town centre.  

“There’s no realistic alternative that guarantees the funding needed to spend on marketing, events and other activities in our town.  Local authority budget cuts mean discretionary spending is coming to an end and so the funding to deliver what BIDs deliver needs to come from somewhere.

“All our competitors have been successful in securing second (and in some cases, third terms) for their BIDs.  If our new BID is going to succeed we need to change its mandate to make it more strategic, more focused, and more of a powerful voice for those businesses who operate in the town centre.  

“The private sector needs that collective voice to help determine the future direction of our town.  That can’t be left to the public sector alone”.

The Business Plan for the new term is currently being drafted and will be available for comment in the next few weeks.  Further details will be posted on the BID website www.southportbid.com.

Southport BID is one of approximately 300 operating in towns and cities across the UK.  BIDs already operate in Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Warrington, Birkenhead, Chester, Blackpool and many of our competing resorts across the UK.  In total there are around 300 of them with more and more being added each year.