Kick Out Minehead BID

16/06/2023

12/06/2023

Here's the full declaration of ballot result from the Council.

No votes: 62
Yes Votes: 50

Together we Kicked Out Minehead BID! 😁😁

12/06/2023

04/06/2023

The end of the BID ballot period is nearly upon us, closes this Thursday 8th June at 5pm, so if anyone hasn't yet posted their vote you must do it now!

Ballot result due to be announced next Monday, 12th June.

Let's hope it's the result so many of us want! 😉

27/05/2023

Wow, the BID have put in a formal complaint about MTC Councillors, they really are showing themselves up and to be desperate.

Thing is, this also highlights the fact that although councils and councillors are accountable for their actions, BID is not. As a private company they can't be held to account or reported for the inaccurate information they are peddling. BID hypocrisy at its finest!

It's a shame that the BID has caused so much division and ill feeling in town, which is why we will be better off without it.

25/05/2023

So what have we learnt from the BID Managers' email to us today?:

1. “The eligible voter for your organisation should have received a ballot paper in the post from CIVICA on or around 10th June and you have until Thursday 8th June to return this in the pre-paid envelope provided.”

Clearly the BID Managers’ proof reading and common sense isn’t upto much then? Ok she recorrected it with a follow up email later, but come on ..….

2. “There is also factual information (in the business plan)”

They are still lying and trying to cover up the mis-information they are publishing, even one of the BID Directors has now gone public corroborating this.

3. “Our governance and rules are also clearly described”

They were described before in the last business plan and their company articles, all very good to say you’ve described them but what about bothering to comply?!

4. “budget demonstrates that delivery costs will be kept to a minimum”

We all know BID has been squandering money.

5. ”Our ballot was delayed to allow a fair process given that the VOA were still making changes to the rateable values as late as March; this is completely true”

The VOA office have stated in writing there were no changes since November 2022, and funny how the rateable values were good enough for the Council to send out their business rate bills.

6. “only 5 votes (1%) available to the local authority”

1%? Is her maths as bad as her proof reading? Total 190 votes, council have 5, and that does not make 1%!

It's 2.63% using my calculator and that's at 100% turnout, but with average BID ballot turnout of 50% that jumps to 5.26% of all votes cast and if marginal yes/no that could be 10% of the total yes vote if they were to vote yes.

But the great thing is BID can't rely on council votes and that has them worried. MTC have confirmed they are abstaining, and Somerset Council are considering abstaining following our petition, in fact the Leader of the Council has invited us to a meeting soon to hear our views. So with any luck they will do the right thing and abstain as well to let the businesses decide BID.

7.”Our threshold is in line with best industry practice”

So they are admitting they've ripped off small businesses the past 5 years by not following best industry practice.

Minehead BID can’t be trusted, we really can’t believe what they say.

23/05/2023

Jay came from 300 miles away to visit us as a huge fan of our YouTube channel! 147,000 follower on there and 107,000 on tiktok 😊 pretty sure in 11 weeks we’ve brought more people to Minehead then the Minehead bid has, they should pay us! 😂 massive joke, we know how touchy that subject is 😂 but seriously they need to pay the invoice we send 😂

22/05/2023

Minehead BID Twitter:

"Updates from the Minehead BID team on its work" 🤔

Not surprising there have been no updates for over a year then! 😂

17/05/2023

All without BID! 👍👏👏

16/05/2023

Get those NO votes in asap, don't delay!

Also remind those businesses near you to pick up their ballot paperwork and cast their votes, every vote really does count.

14/05/2023

Did you realise that £10k of our money goes to the BID Manager just to administrate the BID, so communications, performance monitoring and finances etc? This is £10k gone before and anything is spent on front line projects for the 4 themes of public realm, marketing, events and business support, all of which is charged by the BID Manager on top.

FYI the BID Board are hiding the true cost of the BID Manager in each of the 4 project themes, if she spends an hour on events she bills against that budget and so on ....... So add another £10-20,000. See the small print on page 18 of the Business Plan.

Then if you add the £8-12,000 / year paid to the BID Managers' PR & Marketing company for running the social media etc, you realise just how well one person is doing out of BID despite delivering an inferior service. Let's also remember her company is in Weston-Super-Mare, so all this money is being sent out of the Minehead local economy by the BID Board.

Ok, we do need a good BID Manager, so we need to pay for one and expect this cost, but what bothers us is:
- Are we really getting value for money? We've been racking our brains to understand the value she brings.
- Why hire someone from outside of the area with no BID management experience, without properly considering a selection of candidates? If we were to have hired someone with no BID management experience we should have 'shopped local', and from seeing how she has performed we're sure to have got better.
- Why let her have the social media contract as well, again why not 'shop local'? Her company hasn't even met some of the key social media KPI's she signed up for, such as new followers.
- The Chair himself said her PR and marketing skills would be useful for their renewal ballot, but we have seen no evidence of this 'expertise' to help BIDs renewal ballot cause (which is great for our campaign!). Everything around the ballot has been so low key, but they should be 'singing from the rooftops' across all media channels. From looking at their social media you wouldn't even think there is a ballot.
- Why hide the BID Managers true cost against different budgets?

The BID Chair and his Board have had a chance to prove themselves the past 5 years, but let us all down by their flawed decision making and squandering of money.



The following paragraph is from the BID Business Plan small print on page 18:

BID DELIVERY AND RUNNING COSTS
BID Management costs are split between the project themes according to the estimated resource required for each theme and acknowledging that none of the projects or services can be delivered without a management resource. A proportion of the BID Management time is also apportioned to delivery and running costs. This will cover the time spent on running the BID Company and good governance such as communications, performance monitoring and financial management.

13/05/2023

The EAT festival was in Taunton today, with Damian Patton! 😂

It's funny how so many other towns without a BID get the EAT festival, how could this happen? 🤔

It's simple, their Councils pay to host it, but because we have a BID our businesses have to pay. 😡

P.S. Taunton even have some bunting!