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What is a BID?
The aim of a Business Improvement District (BID) is to fundamentally change the traditional approach to city centre management. A BID is a partnership between local authorities and local businesses to provide additional services and improvements to the city centre. For the first time, retailers will genuinely control their trading environments, allowing them to solve issues that have previously acted as a barrier to business growth. By working together, a BID will add value to your bottom line by transforming your business trading environment.
The Plymouth Business Improvement District is a business-led regeneration programme which seeks to make Plymouth City Centre:
- Better promoted
- Safer
- Cleaner and better maintained
- More attractive
- More welcoming and accessible
- More commercial
What are the benefits?
A BID will unlock Plymouth's retail potential and improve your profitability through collective action.
- Your own independent city centre BID Company with 100 per cent accountability to you c£3m additional city centre expenditure
- £250,000 marketing budget during redevelopment
- 25 major city centre projects realising Plymouth's untapped retail potential
- £400m potential additional high street expenditure
- An increase in city centre footfall, spend and visit time
- Transform Plymouth into a top 20 retail centre with greater business profitability
How does BID work?
- Retailers identify, prioritise and agree the BID projects
- 51 per cent of retailers must support the BID in a postal ballot for it to happen
- Once agreed every retailer contributes proportionately
- Your contributions are ring fenced with the charge fixed at the start
- The BID is 100 per cent accountable to you and will last for five years
- The BID income will provide additional funding for exciting new projects within the city centre as well as adding value to existing schemes and services.
The levy will be collected through the business rates. Match funding is then provided by the City Council and contributions from city centre property owners. The business plan is based on a contribution of 1.162 per cent of the rateable value of each property.
Investing together
| Retailer | Rateable value | 1.162 per cent BID contribution |
| Rainbows End | 11,000 | £110 |
| Brewsters | 17,750 | £177 |
| Surfing life | 43,750 | £437 |
| Lawsons | 77,500 | £775 |
| WH Smith | 328,000 | £3,280 |
| M&S | 560,000 | £5,600 |
What's the potential?
Plymouth has huge potential. It is the 14th largest city in the UK and yet its retail ranking stands at only 29th. The city centre has under performed, failing to attract shoppers located in the South Hams, South East Cornwall and Tavistock areas. Plymouth combined with this catchment area represents a market currently worth just over £1bn. The BID is designed to unlock this potential by enhancing the shopping experience, attracting more shoppers and driving your bottom line.