Businesses along Yorkshire coast count costs of flawed vote – The Yorkshire Post says

It is indicative of the extent to which one local authority in particular – Scarborough Borough Council – sought to manipulate support, including casting votes on behalf of its own building assets, when private businesses, the very people who know how to make money, had legitimate concerns about a BID stretching from Staithes to Spurn Point, and the benefits that they would receive in return.

The result? More than £400,000 owed by firms that come under the auspices of Scarborough Council, a town hall viewed with suspicion, while East Riding Council is now taking legal action to recover levies owed by enterprises in its jurisdiction.

However it is hard not to sympathise with all those firms who believe that they were mis-sold the original proposal in a flawed process.

Yet what is most exasperating is that BIDs are a tried and tested way of improving the prospects of specific localities.

There has also never been a greater need for a Yorkshire Coast BID – coastal towns are also one of the critical tests of the Government’s levelling up agenda.

But such schemes only work effectively if they are a genuine partnership between local government and the private sector, one built on mutual respect and trust.

And while it remains to be seen how the Yorkshire Coast BID recovers from this predicament, what is plain is that North Yorkshire County Council will need a coherent strategy for the coast when it supersedes district councils like Scarborough from 2023.

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