'Andover BID is more like a postcode lottery'

I’m led to believe that if your commercial business is on one side of the road, outside the Business Improvement District, then you could not vote on BID and if your annual business rateable value is more than £10,000 then you are still liable to pay the two per cent levy.

The total annual levy collected is not going to help small businesses and assist them with improving their footfall, but to provide more recreational parks and improving the Chantry Centre. Andover has enough recreational parks, and beside fixing the leaking roof, the Chantry Centre does not need any more money spent on it.

The BID vote approval was very close and included 13 Test Valley borough councillors. Who are these councillors? Do they all live in or near Andover? Of the 49 Test Valley borough councillors nearly half of them live nowhere near Andover.

What this town needs is money spent on helping the homeless, educating parents on how to stop their children becoming obese and providing proper access to shops and businesses for disabled people using wheel chairs.

Perhaps the leader of the Town Council could comment?

Nicholas Christie, Weavers Close, Andover.

Editor’s note: Only businesses within the BID area who have a rateable value of £10,000 or more will pay the levy. Businesses outside the BID area did not have a vote nor will pay a levy. In the BID prospectus there is no mention of “providing more recreational parks” nor improving the Chantry Centre. Test Valley, which was in support of a BID, would not have used their 13 BID votes as a free vote by borough councillors, but would reflect the elected borough council’s decision and support for the BID initiative, by virtue that they have 13 business rated ‘premises’ within the area of the BID.

I would refer our readers to the October 12 issue of the Advertiser, pages 1, 6 and 7, for further information regarding the BID initiative.