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BID BUSINESS In a year that has seen High Streets being brought to their knees, we talk to Trish Willetts, BID Director at Coventry BID about how Coventry is fighting back into business and using arts and culture to heal the high street and strengthen the city centre. Could you tell us a bit about who you are and what you do? I'm Trish Willetts, I'm the BID Director for Coventry city centre, which is a Business Improvement District (BID) of 700 businesses that sit within the Coventry Ring Road. But as we call it in the BID, our beautiful moat! Once people get over our moat and come and see us in the city centre, they get to see this beautiful, medieval city being regenerated and brought to life before their very eyes. 18 dluxe-magazine.co.uk
So, what is a BID? What’s it for? Coventry Business Improvement District (BID) is a partnership between those businesses located within the ring road of Coventry city centre. We’re independent from the Council but we work in partnership with them ‘Driving the Future’ of Coventry city centre. The aim of the BID is to promote, develop and boost the city centre to make it a great place to work and visit. We get involved with all different types of projects but our
priority areas are security and environment, enhancing the city and promoting its businesses and giving those businesses a voice and supporting their growth. Every five years those businesses involved are asked whether the scheme should continue. Each business has one vote and in order for the scheme to be renewed there must be a clear majority by both the number of votes received and the total aggregate rateable value of the votes and I’m pleased to say that this is the BID’s fourth term.
