Business Improvement Districts

[Power Lunch Club]

Earlier this month Edinburgh Businesses voted in favour 60/40...on a 44% turnout....going ahead with a 'Business Improvement Disctrict' Scheme.

Essential Edinburgh - What is a Business Improvement District (BID)?

What do others think...is it a good idea, will it improve commerce in Edinburgh, or will it benefit only a few who operate within the city centre.

Will Edinburgh become more attrative to visit. Is the aim to bring businesses or the tourist money to spend in the shops?

The website goes into more detail

It is of course all paid for through an increase in business rates, but is the 1% cost going to yield a good return on each business investment.

Regards

Gordon
PLC

 

[Idea15]

Experienced this firsthand in my native Washington DC and the setup works brilliantly.

The streets are kept meticulously clean over and beyond council cleaning - imagine cleaning crews canvassing the streets every minute of every hour. Tourists - who tend to only wander into a business district if they're lost - are helped out by a friendly face in a bright uniform. There is lots of signage and advertising, including streetlight banners, so that you know you are in the BID which is immediately defined as a special part of town. Over time the cleanliness and safety of the BID becomes its own advertisement to entice businesses to relocate there.

The best part is that in DC it was paid for entirely by the businesses within the BID, with not one cent of public money used. Uniforms, equipment, salaries, signage - all of that was privately funded.

Disappointed to see that public funds were used in the planning phase for the Edinburgh project - public funds for BIDs defeats the point entirely.

 

[Power Lunch Club]

Disappointed to see that public funds were used in the planning phase for the Edinburgh project - public funds for BIDs defeats the point entirely.

Would the Edinburgh business community been proactive enough to get this going in the first instance?

I go to several networking events and usually the topic of conversation gets around to talking about how long it too everyone to get to an event because of the tramworks. Very few talk bout how brilliant it's going to be once it's all done.

In America there is cleary a more "go gettum" mentality is in place, which allows these things to happen.

I worry because I think the BID is a long term great idea, but like the Trams will suffer from negativity in the short term.

Thanks Heather for point out what happened in Washington...but what of the other Scottish Towns and citities...how do your business communites behave with idea's like this?

Gordon
PLC