Peterborough BID: What’s ahead for our city? – Peterborough Matters

The chair of the team behind the successful campaign to give Peterborough a Business Improvement District (BID) has pledged not to “reinvent the wheel” when it arrives in the spring.

The BID becomes an official entity on April 1, 2022, and with momentum behind the recent vote the next four months will see further engagement, the setting of a business plan and a management structure, and a partner to carry it out.

What will it mean? The campaign to implement a BID for the city hinged on four ‘pillars’ of safety, creating events, marketing and community. 

This was voted through last month by more than 400 businesses, and those businesses now hope to have more of a say on what they want in their area.

Many Peterborough people will believe they’ve heard this sort of thing before, which is something Peterborough Matters put to Mark Broadhead, the chair of Peterborough Positive, as well as the centre director of Queensgate.

Broadhead said: “Sometimes what we know about BIDs – they’re aimed at the business community, and not so much at the overall community. We want a better experience for that community, and it is interesting to hear what the community wants.

“A BID is about getting businesses energized to take an element of ownership, as much as it can, for its own destiny to make the place they’re in as productive for them as the customer.

“On void units – they’re nothing worse than an empty shop, either here in the high street or in Queensgate. We have a better budget in Queensgate to be able to address our windows 

“What we don’t have is a group in the city centre that can have a direct conversation with landlords.

“For example, the premise we are in is PCC, over there could be owned by Milton, or an offshore trust. That means that it isn’t just a case of walking across the road and saying ‘we’ve got to dress that window’ – you’ve got to work with multiple people to find out more, and what you would hope is that those premises realised someone has an interest in their building.”

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All businesses with a ratable value of £15,000 or more in the area were invited to participate in the ballot.  Businesses with a value below that would not be included, simply because it would cost more to collect it than the actual value of the income.

Of those who voted 88% of voters responded yes.

The BID structure originated in North America, and uses a weighted system to give independent stores and cafes a fair vote as much as the larger chains. There are around 280 BIDs in the country.

Broadhead said: “While we wouldn’t …….

Source: https://www.peterboroughmatters.co.uk/local-news/peterborough-bid-whats-ahead-for-our-city-1588453