Smallest businesses are excluded from having a say

A BID is a private club, and if you don’t pay, you don’t get a say! It’s proposed that any non-domestic hereditament within the Taunton BID area with a Ratable Value of less than £5,000 will be exempt, meaning they will not get a ballot vote or have to pay the levy.

At first glance this might seem a good result for small independent traders within the BID area (micro businesses as the Taunton BID feasibility study describes them). But it also means that in the future they will have no say in projects or initiatives within their own business district, and are not allowed to have an executive role in the BID company.

Consequently, besides not being able to have such a say, with no real say this can result in BID projects that are ultimately detrimental to these smaller businesses, for example street market selling outside their doors. There are some very clever and creative small business owners that could possibly bring value to developing and leading BID ideas, or objecting to others as a Director, that could be excluded unless they are a levy payer.

Here’s what Taunton BID have said about small businesses with an RV under £5,000, in which they make it clear they only want to deal with with “eligible businesses” i.e. those paying to be in the club:

“The cost of collecting the levy from these smaller businesses outweighs the income generated from them. It also means that the number of businesses is reduced, meaning that we can communicate with eligible businesses more effectively.”

P.S. Also bit of a misnomer about the cost of collecting the levy as well. Interesting how Minehead BID collect from businesses with an RV of £3,000 or more.

BID proposers will say that all businesses within their area are important to them to develop the district, but fact is it’s a private members only tax club.