The Abingdon-on-Thames Business Improvement District, covering the town centre, was two years in the planning, and has been operating now for one year.
It was voted in by a majority of businesses, and charges businesses a levy in addition to the usual business rate. It has employed a town centre manager, and in feedback to members has noted the following achievements …
It has developed the Visit Abingdon brand, with the visitabingdon.co.uk website and a promotional brochure for visitors.
It has co-ordinated an annual events calendar, and helped put on new seasonal events at Hallowe’en, Christmas (Carols round town) , and Easter (Egg and Spoon races)
It has put up bunting in bid areas.
It has installed footfall counters in 9 locations and monitors and reports the findings and the effect of promotions.
It has set up workshops on business topics such as using social media, and is looking to develop a utilities buying group.
It chases up landlords of empty units and contacts potential businesses to attract them to the area.
It also reports minor issues in the BID area to councils, and lobbies councils on larger issues such as the future use of the charter, and the empty Upper Reaches.
It’s the same old same old I’m afraid. The majority of business did not vote for this, it was the councils using the rateable value of public assets like the multi story car park and the boarded up civic hall that, along with Waitrose and the crown & thistle (who both only voted for it in exchange for their contributions being caped) that out weighed the collective rateable values of business which in turn out voted business.
That aside what tangeabl evidence is there in town that after one year and a £100k of business funding that the BID has done anything to improve the town?
According to the chairmans annual report they’ve put up bunting and agreed to spend £4000 on consultants to see what’s wrong with town, oh and to install foot fall counters!
Are these protagonists who keep jumping from one failing ship to another completely devoid of initiative?
To incorrectly paraphrase Daniel, the bunting looks good….all 3 strings of it?
Thanks julian…i was going to mention the bunting…but couldn’t see the point (s)…and so it didn’t seem right to flag it, or indeed string things out unnecessarily. Still, it is good that they tri tri tried….
As a small business owner in the town – i have never ever received information about what it offers for business owners? ‘It has set up workshops on business topics such as using social media’ this is news to me – all i get is the bill in the post demanding payment for someone to sit in an office to provide a leaflet, telling me how many people walk on the the selected streets where these so called monitors are recording data! crappy bunting that is so distasteful and pointless! Literally another pointless fail – however everyone loves a good ‘egg and spoon race’ probably the most innovative thing they have done yet! Happy easter y’all!
Totally agree with Captainkaos2. They’ve also had a chunk of our council tax, and remember the levy on the businesses, taken from them whether or not they wanted the BID, is ultimately passed on to us.
A lot of talking, footfall counters that I gather are very inaccurate, and pathetic strings of bunting, which most people I’ve spoken to haven’t even noticed.
It really needs to show how it is spending our money and really justify its existence.
Thanks Kelly, quite a few, in fact every independent trader I’ve spoken to are outraged by the fact most have seen a rise in their business rates from April 1st which triggered an automatic rise in their BID payment.
I’ve said it before what Abingdon needs is a visionary dictator, a person who will bang on desks and make things happen, not pussyfooting about organising egg & spoon races or jumping on the back of other people’s achievements like the Chambers Extravaganza or James Whites ATOM festival,
Everyone but everyone knows the fundamental problem with Abingdon is it’s appalling traffic system, sort that and you will get an increase in foot fall which will then lead to more shops opening,
Didcot have just announced a £100 million road bridge over the Thames (and they’re not anywhere near the river) Why?Chilton/Diamond light gets a full diamond interchange on the A34 that’s never used, it’s empty, and it was part funded by OCC, where’s ours?
I see work on the Abbey Meadow re vamp, but not a lot happening to the swimming pool so obviously I doubt we’ll have an open air pool this year? You have to mention the Guildhall closure, when open it brought people into town, as did the boarded up Upper Reaches hotel
I have commercial property in town, one of which is empty, but as landlord of an empty shop I’m being penalised by this inept lot by having to pay their levy while not receiving any rent, so pull your fingers BID and tackle the real issues we have !
I have to ask Captain, as the owner of vacant commercial premises have the BID been ‘chasing you up’ and if so has it been in any way constructive?
Criticism is totally unfair.
Those running the BID have successfully invented an Invisibility Cloak which has been trialed for over a year by our local MP.
This has been so successful that all members of the TC and Vale council are clamouring for the garment.
Another massive commercial coup, though one, of course, the townsfolk won’t see.
Reductio, the old tenant vacated in February but had paid March thus completing the first full year, the new bill for the year 27/18 has been issued, the ironic thing about it is some small businesses under the new biz rate scheme are exempt from paying any biz rates at all and listed buildings, which mine is are also exempt when vacant, but not so the BID, I have to pay them for an empty property and I could stomach that if we could see some positives, alas !
We must admit that even the VOTE NO team thought that more would have been achieved in the first year than has been.
So what has it done so far?
1, We now have some pathetic bunting in parts of the town, wow this will surely bring in footfall!?!
2, We now have a woman walking around the town, who is probably one of the rudest people we have ever had in Abingdon
3, We now have a website with events listed & lots of information about what you can do around Abingdon, but very little within the bid area. So the Bid, is promoting businesses & activities that are outside the area & not paying into the pot. Also, the Town council events page of their website has never existed has it???
4, A leaflet recently came through the letterbox with Abingdon’s events within. This was very limited as to the number of events, we could name about 5 times as many regular / annual events which were not included. But why were they not included? Because they didn’t pay. All the events which were included had to pay for the privilege. Chaps produced a leaflet 3 or 4 times a year & local groups events were included at no cost to the groups.
5, A couple of days events were held in December, and from speaking to 3 of the 6 craft stalls, they will not be back next year. This happened about a week after the annual craft market
6, We have an organisation which is trying to force its way into other organisations so as it looks like they were the driving force.
7 ???
8???
Have we missed anything????
Ok, I think we can say that the Bid has not achieved what it was set out to do. Is it not time to come together & say NO MORE?
If as the Capt says all independent traders are outraged, why don’t we all come together & do something?
Why not arrange a get together to work out a strategy? & as the bid board exclude any non board member, we can exclude all bid board members!!!
‘We now have a woman walking around the town, who is probably one of the rudest people we have ever had in Abingdon’ …
Madame Whiplash? Perhaps she could take over one of the empty units in town …
Hiya NO BID. I’m a Joe Public and not someone financing this farrago of incompetence but you’ve got my sympathy if you’re paying for someone to flounce around town in the emperor”s new knickers. It must be like having a leech attached to your body draining the life-blood of your will to live. Some useless parasite.
As Paul writes … you guys have to organize and fight back. Get a document together and send it to Private Eye asking what more they’d need to make this an Issue in their paper.
If people would organize along these lines we might be able to get rid of our useless councils. I think you’d find ‘Abingdon First’ a useful forum to get your acts together.
Well peeps it seems it’s not as simple as that? When the BID was adopted, (courtesy of councils/public property rateable value outweighing that of the cumulative traders) I wrote to the office of the deputy and the home office who oversee and make up the rules of a BID and ask they intervene on the grounds of gross unfairness, they wrote back saying there is no vehicle which would allow a recount or to adjudicate who is entitled to vote (councils/public bodies and the like) so as far as I can see there are only a few options for traders?
1, do nothing and continue to pay for a dead duck?
2, joint the board and take over operations ?
3, join the board en mass, hold an election as to weather the thing should continue ( but without the public vote) then disband the thing?
A Fifth Column …
We need a collective voice to stand up and be counted. A lot of the result was based on lies. Many traders who were not interested in the bid were told, ok doesn’t matter if you don’t vote. This was a lie. It DID matter that they didn’t vote. Had they voted, we would probably not be in this situation.
Ultimately the bid is being paid for by you, the general public, in one form or another. As stated in a previous post either out of your council tax as the councils have to pay the levy on their rateable properties, or through the tills in the shops.
So we are calling on your help.
Please contact your local councillor and show your anger at the way they supported the bid.
& secondly, and the most important, PLEASE BOYCOTT THE BID BOARD MEMBERS BUSSINESSES which are, NEWBURY BUILDING SOCIETY, THE FRIENDS OF ABINGDON, WENN TOWNSEND ACCOUNTANTS, FRIENDS JEWELLERS, THE GIFT CENTRE, MOSTLY BOOKS
By not supporting these businesses, it will show in their takings & in turn hopefully show that this is NOT what the people of Abingdon want.
No Bid, is your list of board members complete? I thought/ was lead to believe Waitrose and the Crown n Thistle had a seat on the board as a condition of their yes vote? Also the Friends of Abingdon are hardly representative of business, why are they on it? Mostly Books has been up for sale for the past few years, so that just leaves two Abingdon businesses on the board? The Gift Centre and Friend the jewellers, the owners of which have jumped camp from the Chamber of Commerce, to the Chose Abingdon Partnership, then the Abingdon Business Alliance and now this lot. As I understand neither brought anything to the table while members of the other organisations so it’s pretty fair to assume the same of the BID? Little wonder it’s useless then !
The Friends of Abingdon do not have a seat on the BID board – the individual who is our current Chairman is on the board in a personal capacity (because he was previously Chairman of Choose Abingdon – and also ran a successful business in the town for many years) but he is not there because of his Friends of Abingdon position. The Friends would be the first to agree that the BID should be led by businesses!
Incidentally, I frequently hear BID team members saying that they wish more businesses would get involved – I wonder what is stopping them? They could go for Capt K’s option 2 and presumably make better use of the available funds to deliver the improvements they want…
Arguably though Hester because he once had a biz in town shouldn’t entitle him to a seat on the board and your reference to my option two perfectly illustrates what’s fundementally wrong with the BID, there are no town business on the board because town businesses didn’t want the BID in the first place, it’s farcical H, business has had a regime forced on them by people ( yourself an exception) devoid of ideas and innovation !
I really think the Vale, as collector if levy should bring into question the very existence of the BID?
a meet the board meeting was held on 6th june at the kings head and bell with many unhappy independent companies.
The main outcomes were that the full accounts would be produced within 48hrs, an agm would be called and the bidteam would be more transparent. despite numerous requests to date the full accounts have not been produced and they are reusing to issue them,they are refusing to hold an agm as to quote they dont want to be shouted at, and they dont respond to emails that have been sent by various independent retailers,they have gone into their shell in the hope that the natives will just give up