Issue - meetings

1.         Cabinet approved the Business Plan for the next phase of the Hemel Hempstead Town Centre BID as attached at Appendix 3 to this report

2.         Confirmed arrangements, as set out in this report, for a ballot of businesses within the defined BID levy area for Cabinet www.dacorum.gov.uk Thursday 24 November 2022 with the Count to take place on Friday 25 November 2022

Decision

1.    Cabinet approved the Business Plan for the next phase of the Hemel Hempstead Town Centre BID as attached at Appendix 3 to this report

2.    Confirmed arrangements, as set out in this report, for a ballot of businesses within the defined BID levy area for Cabinet www.dacorum.gov.uk Thursday 24 November 2022 with the Count to take place on Friday 25 November 2022

Corporate Priorities

A clean, safe and enjoyable environment; Building strong and vibrant communities; Ensuring economic growth and prosperity; Ensuring efficient, effective and modern service delivery

Statutory Officer Comments:

Monitoring Officer:

The formal ballot will follow the procedures as set out in the Business Improvement Districts (England) Regulations 2004. The Council’s electoral services team will be running the ballot to ensure that it is compliant with the regulations.

S151 Officer:

No further comments to the report.

Advice

Cllr Anderson introduced the report and his hope that the Council can support the Chair of BID to get the right result from this ballot. 

JDoe advised work is going on in the back ground to move this forward and get the administration arrangements in place to support the ballot process.

Cllr Williams asked; will this be a postal ballot for businesses?

JDoe advised there will be postal, commenting that there is not a huge number of ballots to be collected but adding that we will make voting in person available.  Expect the majority to be returned by post.

Cllr Tindall commented that he feels this is a good initiative but asked, can anyone explain why part of the centre is left out?  It appears the part of the Marlowes where the buses stop isn’t included and there are businesses on those sides so wondered why not part of BID?

JDoe advised this goes back 5 years when this was setup; we can make the bid as big or otherwise as we want but there needs to be a consideration to not make the BID area too expansive as there is a risk that the ballot may go against you. 

Cllr Tindall wondered if this may cause resentment within those businesses not included.

Cllr Williams advised there has been no feedback from those businesses to suggest that.  The consultants did a lot of canvasing of businesses before the boundary was fixed 5 years ago and where the interest wasn’t as strong, those areas didn’t tend to be included. 

JDoe advised that some of the smaller businesses more north of the town, they may not be able to afford the levy costs whereas the larger business tend to cost that into their business expenses. 

Cllr Griffiths referred to car parks and asked, do we have to pay into the levy because they are within the boundary?  Have those costs been factored in to coming 5 years?

JDoe confirmed yes we do, and it has been costed in to the MTFS.

Recommendations agreed