By choosing to exclude half the Taunton town centre businesses from BID map on Bridge Street, Station Road, High Street, Paul Street, East Street and East Reach etc, Taunton BID’s ambitions are too limited and selfish to try and effect real collective change on the town. The proposers seem determined to try and force in a limited BID of any type, at any cost, without considering the wider implications and what’s really in the best interests of Taunton as a whole. The Taunton BID voted in for 2007-12 involved the whole town centre with c800 businesses, but the current proposed BID has c440. Interestingly the current BID Consultant led the 2007 BID development effort and the larger area was recommended by and good enough for her last time, and there are many bigger BIDs across the UK today.

A larger more inclusive area trying to help as many businesses as possible was certainly the right thing to do for Taunton’s town centre businesses for the last 3 Taunton BID proposals in 2007, 2012 and 2014, so you have to wonder why not now? Fact is, size of area doesn’t actually matter if BID proposers are confident BID can bring the benefits they say it will.

If you would like to view the 2020 BID map before reading on, then please click here to open it a new window, or scroll down this page.

If Taunton is going to embrace BID, it should do it as a whole town centre business community or not at all, because;

(1) The areas not in the BID area will be starved of "investment" (well that’s what Taunton BID are selling BID as of course), and this could create a two-class town centre. On 8th October 2019, the SWTC Councillor for Station Road even raised concerns that she was worried for her constituent businesses not receiving enough investment because they would not be included in the BID area.

(2) To accommodate the smaller area but raise a nice large pot of money, they've hiked up the BID levy cost by 50% compared to last time. So BID is even more expensive this time around, and considering most didn’t think it was value for money last time and voted it out, how do you think this sits with people who unfortunately went through BID last time?

(3) If voted in, clearly those “chosen” businesses in the BID area are taking on a disproportionate amount of responsibility by paying the levy for the "good of Taunton as a whole". It should not be the moral responsibility of a select number of businesses to make Taunton great as Taunton BID keep telling us. Taunton BID say the streets outside the BID area would benefit from a ripple effect, but they would not be entitled to or benefit directly from everything BID is offering it’s levy payers, and again, even for ripple benefits why should the financial burden to try and make Taunton better fall on the shoulders of just some businesses.

(4) The BID area is too convoluted, we have businesses next to and opposite each other in and out of BID, some of which could be paying the extra business rate and neighbour not, all within what is clearly the town centre. How would you feel if the Council came around to your home and told you they’re going to increase your council tax bill for the next 5 years, but not for the houses next door and opposite? And oh by the way, no-one official at the council has decided this, some bloke in the next road drew up the map with his friends and the council are going along with it! This might seem like a wild analogy, but it's exactly how BID operates when drawing up the BID map.

(5) Through map manipulation, besides imparity amongst businesses Taunton BID are effectively committing a form of electoral fraud. Taunton BID have made the decision to cut out of the BID area some businesses who are known to be NO voters, but that doesn't help those stuck in the middle of it who don't want to pay the extra tax, whilst rather dubiously including as many Public Authority properties as they can. For the BID proposers it’s all about sneakily doing anything and everything to get YES votes to push a BID through, even if they don’t have a true majority of businesses behind them. See the maps with notes below, and here are just two of stark examples;

Despite it’s town centre location they’ve decided to leave out Morrisons, and yet Sainsbury’s is included. We understand that this is because Morrisons are not known to be BID friendly, unlikely to have voted for Minehead BID (conducted by Taunton’s BID Consultant), and as such Taunton BID are scared Morrisons might vote NO in the Taunton BID ballot. Is that really a good reason to exclude such a business, when many smaller businesses with much less available cash than Morrison’s don’t want to be part of BID and will vote NO, yet have been forced into the BID area?
Whilst being happy to leave out a business like Morrisons, Taunton BID are happy to tax the public purse and take Public Authority YES votes. The inclusion of Car Parks and Toilets aside, the revised BID map released on 16/12/19 suddenly included Brendon House on the High Street, the Public Authority owned DWP / Job Centre building which is now the the 4th largest rateable value (RV) property in the BID. The redrawn map could have easily excluded the building, but it’s significant because if Taunton BID can get a YES vote for Brendon House (and given their vested interests in raising private investment Public Authorities normally vote YES), then this one vote will have cast 4% of the total RV vote! Public Authority votes (including the two Councils) are now forecast at c18% of the total RV vote. Is this voting influence fair, when we’ve been told BID is for the businesses, voted on by the businesses?

(6) If the BID is voted in, the BID area map becomes legally binding and cannot change for 5 years without another ballot, so no going back if upon reflection more businesses start to realise that the map is biased and unfair.

what excuses are taunton bid using?

We and various businesses have queried Taunton BID as to why the BID area isn’t larger and more inclusive this time, and the following are the various excuses we’ve heard from different members of the Steering Group:

“From previous experience we’ve learnt the area is too big”. It can’t have been a problem during operation of the last BID 2007-12, otherwise we wouldn’t have subsequently had 2 ballots with roughly the same bigger BID area. The fairer larger area had previously been acknowledged as the right thing to do, and in best interests of Taunton for the past 3 BID proposals.
“The administration costs and time won’t make it worth it”. Collection costs (BID pay the council to collect the levy) are at a minimum proportional to the number of levy payers and perhaps there could even be some cost economies of scale for having more levy payers. The Taunton BID budget shows the cost of each collection is £25. In addition other BID’s like Exeter manage to operate with hundreds more businesses (as Taunton did previously).
“We’ve consulted with those businesses”. The feasibility study and decisions of a few people driving the BID development process has engineered the BID area to not include Bridge Street or East Reach, and its a lie they have consulted with all the businesses on those streets. Perhaps the East Street Traders Association and a couple businesses may have been asked if they want to be part of BID and they quickly said “NO THANKS” - can’t blame them really, their response speaks for itself and they’ve had a lucky escape! But that is not a proper BID consultation process, the consultation process only started in earnest in July 2019, but clearly, by then a couple of people had subjectively decided on the area. If BID really can do what they say and bring the benefits they are “selling”, they should easly have the courage of their conviction to demonstrate this to all town centre businesses during their BID consultation phase the past 6 months.
Referring to East Reach “most of the businesses are under an RV of £5k, so it doesn’t make it worth it”. This is totally untrue, you just have to do the research to see that over 75% of business have an RV over £5k, and over half of those over £10k, with 4 over £100k RV.
The Taunton BID Consultant has even blamed the voters themselves, the following being minuted at a Steering group meeting: “East Reach which is a tricky business community to convert.”

With so many excuses from Taunton BID, one really has to question the real reasons!

summary

The self-appointed BID proposers have made self-directed decisions without proper consultation, to choose which businesses pay and which areas of the town centre they feel should receive extra "investment" or not, and it really doesn't feel right to many people. If we were to do something like BID it should be the collective responsibility of the whole town centre business community, in order for Taunton as a whole to reap all the benefits we're being "sold" BID could bring.

If the BID proposers really believe BID can bring positive change, they should have the courage of conviction to do it properly and involve the whole of the town centre business community. Hopefully you will see the BID proposal for what it is, too manipulated, unfair, and biased, leading to it not aligning to true business community-wide values, ambitions and plans for the whole of Taunton town centre to thrive.