BID ballot’s are not a fair fight and set up in favour of a YES vote.
One of the downsides of BID’s is that they are not truly democratic. We know there’s a ballot in which all BID businesses are eligible to vote in, which BID proposers say makes it a democratic process, but is that alone enough to make it truly democratic?
What if all voters aren’t informed about the ballot, or there’s only local authority backing for a YES campaign which provides just one side of the argument including lies and mistruths, or what if ultimately only 14% of all businesses voted in the BID? In a true democracy it’s about much more than about just having a ballot.
To make a ballot truly democratic both sides of the argument need to have equal opportunities and treatment, but unfortunately this isn’t the case with BID’s. With Council votes some are even “forced in” controversially against the say of the true majority of real businesses BID is meant to be for, Yorkshire Coast BID is a classic example.
There will always be two voting sides in any ballot, but sadly BID’s are geared to only YES voters whilst ignoring and undermining any NO opposition, effectively side-lining those business that would vote NO. This is why the information website was built, as an information resource and voice for those businesses against BIDs. BID proposers tend to be in denial of any concerns and not respectful of what are very legitimate alternative points of view, but these are common problems with BID’s as even one of the UK's own industry bodies for BID's reported in early 2019.
BID Foundation report, 2019.
Here are some examples that highlight the flaws in the BID development process, which leads to uphill challenges for those businesses that don’t see value in a BID, and thus don’t want it;
Self-appointed BID proposers only need to ‘prove’ to a local authority that they have the interest of 5% of the businesses in order to ask for funding and put a full BID proposal forward.
The BID Consultation phase is not to determine whether a Town wants a BID or not, it is there to best plan a vote YES campaign and massage their marketing / PR messaging to appeal to YES voters, whether it can be delivered or not.
BID proposers put together vote YES campaigns funded by public money, these sums are in the region of £40,000 - £100,000+ from Councils yet there is no funding for a NO Campaign. This amount of money can buy a lot of marketing and PR for a YES propaganda campaign in an attempt to get businesses buying into their “utopian vision” and sell false promises.
The ballot is organised in partnership between the Council and YES Campaign. The timetable is dictated by the YES Campaign, and ballot papers can be posted with only their pro-BID literature. During the ballot, besides the Council, the YES campaign is the ONLY other party allowed to know who has voted, which enables them to do targeted canvassing, whilst the NO side doesn’t have this opportunity.
There is no legal requirement for BID proposers to have informed or consulted with all businesses in a BID area, which tends to lead to them focussing on motivating only YES voters to exercise their votes, whilst hoping NO voters will quietly forget about or not think it’s important to vote when they receive a ballot cards in the post. This tactic is even written in black & white in the London BID handbook! There’s not even any requirement to ensure every voting business receives their ballot card.
Because Councils are BID partners that have vested interests in raising more money through business rates to be spent in their areas, many Councils tend to vote YES. But given they will normally to have multiple properties within a BID area, and such properties tend to have high rateable values (i.e. car parks), there’s Council voting bias against businesses that don’t want a BID. BID’s are meant to be for businesses, decided on by the businesses, which is why we believe Councils should do the right thing and abstain from voting so in the spirit of BID regulations it becomes a decision by the businesses.
BID’s last 5 years and are then voted on again by the Levy payers. But again, BID companies only put the YES case to voters, and use the Levy they have collected from everyone to fund another vote YES campaign, despite taking money from NO voters.
These examples of how the whole BID development and ballot process is set up for a YES vote really is the tip of the iceberg. BID’s are not truly democratic, they are central government and local authority backed business rate schemes they are happy to see forced in against the majority of businesses; some have labelled BID’s legalised extortion and we can sort of see why. Look at the Brexit referendum, imagine having only a publicly funded and government backed LEAVE campaign with the REMAIN campaign side-lined (or the other way around depending on your Brexit voting persuasion), it would be ridiculous right? Well this is exactly how BID ballots are developed and we’re seeing this for ourselves now in Taunton.
As you can see everything is set up in favour of trying to gain a YES vote, and with no minimum voter turnout required for a ballot, just 30 of say 400 BID businesses voting YES with less a number of NO’s, would result in a BID levy being foprced on all businesses for 5 years. Many BID proposers and companies are happy to have a BID mandate even if a true majority of all businesses don’t really want it. The whole BID set up doesn’t seem fair does it, severly disadvantaging the legitimate concerns of the NO side businesses; for “NO vs YES” campaign’s it really is a “David vs Goliath” battle!
