Correspondence with In West Ealing BID

Dear Paul, Kenneth

 Firstly thank you so much for coming to meet me on the 9th September it was such a pleasure to see you both. I left the meeting highly enthused by the broad opportunities discussed that is available in West Ealing BID to break new ground and deliver an incredibly valuable service to the West Ealing Businesses.

I note that the last few years have been harder and harder for BID to thrive and function and that there may have been many businesses such as ourselves that perceived the BID in it’s current form to be nothing less that a liability and just another self serving taxation burden rather than perceiving and positive benefit overall to the actual businesses it’s supposed to help.

The perception can change however I believe many aspects need to be addressed and change first in order to give confidence back to the businesses. Immediate emphasis on a new dynamic website hub and a weekly social update to highlight Paul as local hero would be my opinion.

 West Ealing BID warden – Paul Roberts local business hero

1)Paul I was blown away with the passion and level of commitment that you have for the small business owners, visiting them, representing them if their English communication isn’t the strongest and championing their views to larger organisations and back to councillors and civil servants.

What was absolutely apparent was that none of this is visible to the wider public nor the wider BIB members as there is not any current social media nor current website platform to showcase the wins and indeed the daily trials.

Showcasing what you do alone would drive community support, enthuse businesses that someone is available from BID to help and also give a platform for other businesses to follow stories of similar interest to their own thus minimising the number of individual visits you must do covering the same issues.

If I have known about the daily activities that you had been doing I would have reached out sooner rather than stopping payment to make a stand.

Some of these stories and issues that you cover will be the same situation for every BID participant and by having a hub that they can view progress and stay in contact will mean that one win can be shared with many.

Free Pest Control and Waste Collection (note for Free at all)

2) I appreciate that many aspects of West Ealing BID provision has suffered due to lack of funds and seemingly perpetuated by the high costs of providing the free waste collection and pest control which then prevents anything else being done well.

Suggestion 1: Review of Waste collection and Pest Control costs with the aim of reducing contract cost and increasing availability. Are you happy to share the data on this. What are the number of businesses taking up these (not free) services, and details of the contracts and costs.

Can we explore if these services could or should be provided other funding other than BID hence freeing up BID money to drive new business for BID members?

Relating back to the dormant website – if this is a service provided onwards then there should be direct links on the website and full information so that BID members can actually view and access direct from website links.

Business Rates

A key question I have is: Exactly what services should be covered by the normal business rates levy – are we able to find out exact breakdowns? Maybe there is funding available already covered in this collection.

Website and Social

This in my opinion must be prioritised front and centre and a thriving hub where businesses in the BID area and residents alike can access up to date and interesting information. Their business pages should invite interaction and host business promotions. The events page should host business events and promotions as well as BID sponsored events.

The site should be a hub where each business can market to the other businesses in the shared area and do an intracompany promotions for shared customers.

There should be a hub where businesses can share issues and use collection bargaining with suppliers to ensure the most favourable rates Electric, gas and water being top of the lists. Real rising costs that will shut businesses for good unless something is done.

Grants and subsidies: What was awful in lockdown is that businesses had to fight to find out what they were entitled to and the process to apply was difficult and seemingly purposefully obscure.

West Ealing BID should be a hub for information where all West Ealing businesses could access information. Rates payers should not have to beg for subsidies = they should be collectively analysed and distributed in according to their entitlement and rates bills.

WE should have a united voice for matters such as this.

United voice

All West Ealing BID businesses should have a united voice back to Ealing Council or other public bodies that are meant to be putting into place policies for the good of the public that they serve.

For example Kingdom representatives that have been terrorising the small businesses – what is happening with them and indeed the question should be asked who instructed them and gave them council authority to terrorise businesses in their full body armour and cameras?

A letter would be sufficient.

There are numerous other subjects that the businesses need a voice to represent them – is West Ealing BID that voice?

Ultimately the dormant website and dormant social are fundamental and if prioritised would give a go to hub and visibility of all the amazing works that BID are doing – with more interaction and more value visible to businesses then this would self perpetuate to more adoption from businesses and a greater willingness to participate and fund BID.

Other information that would be useful:

How many businesses are not paying

Accounts for the last 3 years showing where the money is being spent and could it be better diverted to the website and social following Paul’s local hero activity.

For example banners and Christmas decorations – how much did they cost and should BID have paid for it or should other funds have paid for it allowing BID money to be spent on the website and promotion of businesses and BID itself? Could we have received the banners for Free with the right push to the right requests? Can we tap into grants and subsided that are not currently being accesses? Should the decorations have come from already collected Business Rates and Council Taxes. Could a large business have contributed with sponsorship instead of every small business?

I hope that some of my thoughts are useful insight from a key business in the area that has been completely unsatisfied to the point in stopping payment to make a stand. IF BID can adapt and improve then it was a chance for not only survival but to thrive and be a highly valued support to every BID business.

As the smallest BID we cant just do what other larger BIDS do and hope to survive– we can be better but it might be that we have to do things differently.

You mentioned meeting other board members – I am very happy for you to share this information and that I can attend a meeting – I am willing to host it at Eden.

Please let me know your thoughts.

My very best Charlie