Wimbledon Town Centre has 550 businesses. The Wimbledon Town Centre Management Board, which represents the key stakeholders in the town, has been considering the feasibility of establishing a Business Improvement District for a number of years. With adjacent towns, Kingston and Croydon, already reaping the benefits of this status, Wimbledon needs its businesses to get involved to support the required YES vote in a BID ballot, prior to its formal establishment.

What is a Business Improvement District
A Business Improvement District is a partnership between a local authority and the local business community to develop projects and services that will benefit the trading environment within the boundary of a clearly defined commercial area. By the begining of 2008 over 60 Business Improvement Districts had been established across England, Wales and Scotland.

• BIDs allow businesses in a defined area and business sector(s) to vote on which additional services they want to invest in, to improve their trading environment
• The vote is open to tenants - if a majority, both by number and by rateable value, approve the proposal, all ratepayers will contribute through their business rates.
• BIDs give local businesses the power to effect changes that will benefit them in their local community. Improvements may include extra safety/security, cleansing and environmental measures, improved promotion of the area, improved events, and greater advocacy on key issues, but the legislation does not put a limit on what products or services are provided.
• Businesses have the opportunity to agree on the projects for which they are contributing and to vote in a ballot on the amount of money they are prepared to raise, enabling them to become involved in the administration of the schemes themselves.
• BIDs are operated by not-for-profit partnership organisations.
• The interests of large and small businesses are protected through a system which requires a successful vote to have a simple majority in both votes cast and rateable value of votes cast.
• Businesses must be able to sustain the additional cost - if they are not viable the BID levy raise enough income to make it a worthwhile venture.
• Once voted for, the levy becomes mandatory on all defined ratepayers and is treated as a statutory debt.
  
• The plan voted for has a lifespan of 5 years and further proposals will have to be reaffirmed through a vote.
• Local Authorities play an important facilitating role and in particular are charged with legal responsibilities, including the provision of the ratings data to calculate the BID levy, the collection and enforcement of the BID levy via a ring-fenced BID Revenue Account that is then passed straight to the BID company, the organisation of the formal BID ballot, and the preparation and commitment to the baseline service agreements.
  

What does Wimbledon need to do


There are a number of steps that we have to undertake:

To determine the boundaries of the BID
To map out the landowners - who are they, what do they own, how do we get them involved?
To learn lessons and apply best practice from other similar size towns that have gone through the process
To recruit Business Leaders to act as advocates

Where are We Now?

The Going for Gold campaign aims to achieve business engagement through a range of activities and initiatives that could be included in an on-going Business Plan for the town.

Thanks to funding from the London Borough of Merton and a growing number of businesses, our campaign is going from strength to strength. What we need to do now is get more businesses involved and investing in the campaign.