Group set up to boost business on Bankside gets five more years

A business-boosting group has been given an overhwelming vote of confidence by its backers, writes Marianne Gros.

Non-profit organisation Better Bankside has secured another five-year term to attract investment in the area, following a ballot in which local businesses expressed their overwhelming support.

A Business Improvement District (BID) is an independent, business-owned and led company, which seeks to improve a given location for commercial activity.

A landslide 92 per cent of businesses in the community voted for another five years of Better Bankside, the largest ballot majority since it was established in 2005.

Better Bankside chief executive Peter Williams said “We’re really delighted with the result and support from local businesses. Our offer to meet each of our 1,000 member businesses at their premises resulted in fabulous feedback on the area and our operations.”

The result secures £11m of investment over the next five years to deliver projects and services oriented to improving the neighborhood.

Any businesses with a ratable value of £26,000 and above will contribute 1.1 per cent from April 2020 for the next five-year term.

Better Bankside covers the area from the riverside in the north, to Borough Tube station and Great Suffolk Street in the south, and from Blackfriars Road in the west, to Trinity Street in the east.

Its businesses include Aesop, Mc & Sons,Guy’s and St Thomas’ Medical School, and Shakespeare Globe Exhibitions.

Over the past 15 years, it has brought in £8m of external funding to supplement the levy from businesses and has diverted 835 tonnes of waste from landfill and improved 21,500sqm of public space.

This external funding included funds from Transport for London and the Greater London Authority.

Mr Williams said: “Our themes of responsible business and resilient communities resonated, and there clearly is an appetite for the kind of change we advocate and support.”

Among Better Bankside’s current and forthcoming projects is the implementation of a green vision to underpin the delivery of the Low Line which follows the path of Bankside’s historic railway arches, initiatives to reduce single use plastics in local businesses, and innovations to address local air quality.