We're bidding to make city centre great

Mar 17 2010 by Chris Knox, The Journal

It is almost a year since Newcastle's Business Improvement District was launched. Chris Knox looks at the impact it has had on the city centre, its shoppers and its traders - and its plans to create parks and introduce late-night shopping all week.

SHOPPERS still flock to the shopping streets of Newcastle, but the recession has added to the pressures on traders who are fighting an increasingly tough battle to compete against out-of-town malls.

The city centre has benefited from a glut of openings, including shops and restaurants at Old Eldon Square and most recently the launch of the St Andrew’s Way mall at the shopping centre. That has brought with it big names such as Apple and Debenhams.

A year ago the city launched its own business improvement district. Traders pay a levy to NE1 which markets the area as a centre for leisure and shopping and tries to improve it as a place to visit.

Newcastle NE1 was launched on April 1 after being voted in by the traders as the 90th Business Improvement District (BID) in the UK. It has since had a mixed reception among local businesses.

It is also the most ambitious to date, with the centre containing more businesses per square mile than any other BID – more than 3,300 in all, making it the biggest in the world.

The BID concept was introduced in Kingston-Upon-Thames in 2004 and is a public-private partnership in which businesses in a defined area elect to pay an additional tax in order to fund improvements to their trading environment.

Firms in the centre are levied each year based on their rateable value, for which they expect NE1 to carry out a series of practical measures designed to enhance the city centre and to increase visitors numbers.

The company has also amassed a heavyweight list of directors to ensure that it is taken seriously by the business community as well as help it to introduce its policies more easily.

These include David Quinn, managing director of the Fenwick department store, Gavin Black of property consultants Gavin Black & Partners, and Barry Rowland, chief executive of Newcastle City Council.

The Newcastle BID, which receives £1.7m each year from its members, has already introduced its first measures to help improve trading conditions, with the most noticeable being a 12-strong team of ‘street rangers’ and cleaners.

The rangers, who are recognisable by their bright blue suits, act as guides to tourists and present a friendly face to those seeking help or directions. The street cleaners are employed to react quickly to businesses’ concerns about rubbish which appears.

NE1 chief executive Sean Bullick now hopes to add another 20 jobs to the team through the Government’s Future Jobs Fund and said that the clean team in particular was being well received by traders.

He said: “Providing street rangers has been our top priority since we were set up to manage the BID as it was the first thing that city centre business asked for as a collective.

“The rangers have been well received by the business community as well as the general public, who now have people they can go to for information about shops as well as the latest cultural attractions that the city centre has to offer.”

However, there are those that believe that the cleaning needs to be more intensive if businesses are to receive value for money.

John Middleton, owner of The Greenmarket Cobbler in Nun Street, said: “I think the street cleaners do a good job, certainly better than the council, which just uses motorised street sweepers that are unable to reach certain areas and have damaged a number of shop fronts, including ours.

“Saying that, I do feel that something needs to be done about the amount of vomit that finds its way on to the city centre streets as a result of weekend drinking. It’s not something I like to talk about, but I think most businesses in the town would agree that it is a problem.”

Other measures that have been introduced over the last 12 months include a series of street performances during the run up to Christmas and the launch of a marketing campaign that has seen adverts appear on TV as well as in the local press.