The government has published draft legislation for Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) as it looks to emulate the schemes’ success in the US.
The move, announced this week as part of the Local Government Bill, will allow local authorities to raise a levy alongside business rates to pay for the BID at a level agreed between council and local businesses.
The government hopes that the schemes will prove as successful at regenerating and maintaining urban centres as those Dan Biederman set up in New York by helping councils and local businesses work together more effectively.
But the proposal has been criticised by Conservative peer Lord Jenkin of Roding – who attempted to introduce BID legislation as a private members bill – for failing to tie-in landowners.
Of the five BIDs set up by the Circle Initiative in London last year with funding from the Single Regeneration Budget, the most successful has been the Holborn Business Partnership.
Geoffrey Lander, partner at law firm Nabarro Nathanson and chairman of the HBP, said that the success of the Holborn BID rested on the fact that large property owners had “bought-in” to the BID.
In the US, the main financial contributors are landowners because they pay rates instead of occupiers.
EGi News 13/06/02
