Taunton - A look at the failed Taunton BID ballot 2020 & the NO campaign against it.

Taunton has an interesting BID history:

2007 - BID established after a YES ballot result, with a 5 year term ending in 2012.

2012 - BID renewal ballot resulted in a NO, so BID kicked out.

2014 - BID development ballot resulted in a NO again (with a worse result than in 2012).

2020 - Some bright sparks decide to bring BID back to ballot again, and the ballot was ‘suspended’ 2 hours before ballot closure for no good verifiable reason, so NO BID yet again! Interesting that when one of the BID proposer steering group members was asked what happened to the BID he replied “we knew it wasn’t going our way”.

The following is a series of articles are from the hard fought NO campaign for the 2020 ballot, which basically beat the Council and BID proposers into submission. You can see how the campaign developed and many strong evidence based NO arguments were put across, so please read with interest and feel free to copy / use any article tailored for your own NO BID campaign.

Why did the Taunton BID ballot really get stopped?

So was Taunton BID’s decision to end the ballot at the 11th hour, a stupid irrational decision, or an attempt to ‘save face’ given they could see it being a NO ballot win? Given all their mistakes, spin, lies, mistruths, lack of transparency and poor decision-making, Taunton BID really have shown themselves not worthy of taking £1.4 million from businesses to ‘invest’ in Taunton as they feel fit. But the irony of the situation is that Taunton has been deprived of the chance of a BID by the BID proposers themselves. At least the outcome is as so many businesses wanted - NO BID!

Against BID11 April 2020response, suspend

Taunton - A look at the failed Taunton BID ballot 2020 & the NO campaign against it.

The following are a series of blog articles used as part of the NO campaign, scrutinising the BID proposals and summarising objections.