No vote spells an an end to BID
The seven-nights-a-week security patrol, paid for by the BID, has assisted in reducing criminal activity and in deterring would-be offenders in the town.
SLEAFORD BID staff and directors have been left stunned and disappointed after the business community failed to show its support for the organisation to continue its work for a further five years.
The Business Improvement District has announced that, in a renewal ballot of its 660 levy payers, it had been unable to achieve the required number and rateable value of “Yes” votes needed to build on the work it has done.
In order to forge ahead, and potentially spend over £550,000 in helping Sleaford to grow over the next five years, over 50 per cent of the BID’s levy payers who voted had to say “Yes” and the aggregate rateable value of those which did had to add up to more than the figure for those which said “No.”
But the count revealed that only 46 per cent voted Yes.
BID manager Emma Batty said: “We are extremely disappointed about the result. This will have a negative impact on Sleaford.
“We were very keen to build on the successes which we have seen over the past five years and to introduce a range of new initiatives to support traders in the town centre and the industrial estates.
“Sadly, this result means that funding for the promotion of the town itself is withdrawn. There is no investment for other areas and our popular, seven-nights-a-week security patrols will stop from October 1.
“I would like to say a big thank you to those businesses which have supported us, because we would have liked to have continued and to have delivered further improvements in Sleaford.”
More on this story on page 3
l What are your thoughts? Should businesses have voted to save the Sleaford BID? Contact us at andy.hubbert@jpress.co.uk, visit our Facebook page, or on Twitter at @SleafordSt or write to the editor at 28 Handley Street, Sleaford.
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Weather for Sleaford
Friday 24 May 2013
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