This week your Hello Dorking BID manager attended the National BIDs Conference. Here are my top line observations.
I enjoyed Chris Turner’s presentation of the BID survey results, which put into perspective how we are performing and provides one more benchmark for us to consider in our strategy, performance measures and approach.
Dorking is a medium sized managed BID, with an all volunteer board. We collaborate with our community partners, are open and transparent in our plans and reporting, and we implement best practice from BIDs, ATCM, LGA, IPM and others into our work. As our BID Chairman Andrew Fuller and I say at our weekly Monday sprints: ‘We are on the right track!’
There is always room to learn and grow and this event was brilliant. Chock full of inspiration, ideas, data and best practice, I learned from every speaker (and person I met in the conversations in between).
The agenda covered important items relevant to our BID, to include:
- The retail environment and trends within physical retail spaces
- Regenerative place making
- The proposed Protect legislation and the impact on events
- Cultivating Local Authority relationships
- Retail Security – Challenges and BID responses
- BIDs and the ESG agenda
- BIDs in 2023- What does the data say?
I found the data to be revealing — especially the Savills presentation by Steven Toal and the policing discussion offered up by Hannah Wadley of the Safer Business Network.
I’m not sure there is enough time in one blog to unpack each one of these information-driven sessions, but key takeaways include:
- chocolate is the new lipstick
- crime has become more organised
- communication is key to building partnership
Fran Inman from the award-winning Bristol BID reminded us that communication is key when building relationships and local to national programmes. A wonderful presentation.
The conversations with my colleagues and BID counterparts were immensely helpful and insightful, like the ones I had with Philip Clifford’s (LGA) discussion regarding Levelling Up and devolution and the challenges that poses.
I think the highlight for me was the presentation by Karen Pengelly, EPSOM BID Manager. It is an issue close to home and she has implemented far-reaching strategies, tactics, and solutions to address ‘the elephant in the room’ of shopkeepers dealing directly with theft on the high street. We are meeting in the coming weeks to collaborate and we are going to continue to work closely with our ‘Surrey BID’ consortium to find ways to find economies of scale and share ideas and collaboration.
If you have questions about the Hello Dorking BID, our work, my observations about this excellent conference (I have a whole set of notes – if you know me, you know), get in touch.
Thank you to the whole BID planning team for a brilliant event.
