MONEY SHOP
Footwear Today’s financial plumber, footwear retailer David Gummers, explains the pros & cons of the Retail Business Improvement Scheme.
have to to pay a 1% levy/tax on the rateable value to fund the scheme. I will later go into the pros or cons of the scheme on our town.
I
Being independent minded I find the idea of a tax, however small, that is not levied by the Government, slightly disturbing. The other concern I have is that if only 20% of the businesses vote and the majority of them vote in favour, then the fact that 80% have no view is irrelevant a bit like the election of the police commissioners, which were foisted on people with meagre turnout.
That is enough of the negative. Provided more than 50% of the traders
are in favour of the proposal, I do believe that the rest of the traders should not be able to hold such a plan back, through lack of money. It is a real case of a business may not be able to measure the benefit, but if a town is involved in the marketing of itself, an individual business can hardly claim that it will not get some benefit providing that the people designated to run it do their jobs properly.
From a selfish perspective as our rateable value is relatively low, 53p a
week, it is not going to make any difference to the business finances. If we sell one extra pair of shoes a week that would be money well spent for no effort on our part.
I can imagine though, if the rateable value was £30,000, as it is in some
of the other towns, I am not sure I would want to be paying £300 a year on top of my rates. I suppose with anything like this provided it is a genuine attempt to make the town better I am content. If however, as is the case sometimes, where these schemes are just a method of giving civil servants a chance to earn extra money and bringing in revenue by the back door, I am more sceptical!
In the town itself, I am not sure that we need an outside agency to set up a business plan like this, as there are one or two highly astute people who already give up their time to make sure the town thrives. If only the Council gave the impression of being on the traders’ side we would be able to grow our businesses better. I think i may come back to this in a future article! I am sure that in most towns there is a committee that organises a couple of big events a year. The best one in my town is the Dickensian weekend, which brings thousands of people from all over the country, last year there were 21 buses and the cash machines ran out of money.
I am undecided on which way I will vote on the issue as the money is so
tiny that it does not matter to the business, but the idea of compulsion through a Government law goes against the grain. Having said that I have commented in early articles about the fact that any town must evolve or it will die. Especially, with the advent of the Internet, which over the next few years, is going to be the biggest threat to the High Street’s existence!
16 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • JUNE/JULY 2014
had a visit recently from the Business Improvement District Coordinator for Ulverston, Cumbria. It was an interesting discussion. If more than 50% of the businesses of the town vote in favour of the scheme, by law they
I know this article may have left you a tad confused as to where I stand on
this. As with many things to do with marketing and finance, it is not clear cut. I do, however, believe that whatever the abhorrence of compulsion, personal views should never cloud a business judgement.
Therefore, despite my initial reservations and I did ask the coordinator a
few tough financial questions, which to his credit, he was able to answer, directly and honestly, a big plus in my book! In conclusion, I would say it is utterly harmless, as the cost is meagre enough to probably do more good than harm.
Anything that brings people to our town has got to be worth looking at
seriously. I would be interested to know if any any other footwear retailers have such a scheme in their town? If so, has it made any difference to your turnover and profitability? I believe they are in widespread use in market towns up and down the land. And, if your town doesn’t have a scheme like this, perhaps it’s time it did?
A meeting is to be held in Ulverston to discuss the matter, so the more
information I have the better position I will be in to offer an informed opinion. I’ll keep you informed and look forward to hearing your experiences...!
If you would like David to look at your business costs, he promises that if he cannot save you any money you pay him nothing. But for every pound he saves you pay him, 15 pence. If you want to learn more email David on david@fdickinsonfootwear
Website: http://www.fdickinsonfootwear
.co.uk or call 01229 580654
.co.uk/
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