A Fresh Perspective Write: Room B119 Canterbury College, New Dover Road, Canterbury CT1 3AJ kentishgazette@thekmgroup.co.uk 500 words max please to be submitted by 5pm Monday Champion vote Just two parties was in 1950 in city centre

Local independent businesses - we hear a lot about them in Kent, they have a powerful voice in the community, trusted and familiar to residents and visitors. I’m a fan of business and enterprise, from washing cars as a kid to today having many fruitful ventures and relationships in the city - the desire to work for myself has always been there. Like most people in business, I’ve had ups and downs, success and failure. I’ve learned powerful lessons, including one on Canterbury high street itself - a baguette shop that didn’t survive the credit crunch of 2008, but was still one of the most enjoyable times of my life.

One thing I learned is that to win in the game of high street, you have to band together and play to your strengths. Shopping centres and out-oftown locations have parking - but they don’t have charm and history. They have chain restaurants, but not cute cafes. Shopping centres act as magnets because of their presence, branding, events - so independent shops need to compete with that visibility.

A ‘business improvement district’ or BID is the excellent solution with an awful name. We have one in Canterbury; it’s called Canterbury Connected, some like it, some don’t, and I used to be on the board that ran it. In case it’s needed, to jog your memory, it’s responsible for the medieval pageant, street cleaning, welcome and information people, supporting Pride and City Sound Project, the Christmas lights and switch on, hanging baskets, and interactive storytelling games that bring huge new footfall to a part of town that needed a boost, networking events and plenty more local solutions to local business issues. But apart from that, what has the BID ever done for us? Just ask a business owner who has used it and engaged with it.

Like the NHS, you’ve got to use it to experience it. Unlike the NHS, it’s not painful to do so - it’s quite engaging, actually. Until 2017 I was on the board of the BID in Canterbury - a role I thoroughly enjoyed as I represented the night-time economy’s interests as part of my job at events company Republic Events. Between organising student nights and family music festivals, I was able to get involved with learning how to scrutinise company accounts with some of the highest regarded accountants in the city, and retail bosses well above my pay grade. You get out what you put in to life. We pay for the NHS with our tax - if we don’t have to use it, that doesn’t mean we should try to. But with a BID, as a business owner you pay into it, and can actively seek the benefits - so why wouldn’t you?

Unlike a tax - you can vote if you want to pay it. Every four years or so, business owners get asked if they still want the BID. I don’t remember us being asked if we wanted to pay 20% VAT. In fact, if you aren’t a fan of tax, it does seem to set a precedent in your favour if that’s what we are doing with our taxes now.

I once heard Mark Steel make a joke about a new type of lamppost. You put 5p in a slot and it lights up, walk to the next one, put in another 5p and then walk on ... you never have to pay for someone else’s lighting or share a pavement. Sometimes it feels like there are people in the local business community who would rather these were installed rather than those fancy LED ecofriendly lights, but luckily there are also plenty of shining stars who make it an amazing community that I’m proud to be a part of. voter engagement and rational use of statistics the 1950 general election remains the champion. It was and remains the largest democratic exercise in British history.

There were no “deceptive statements” in my letter. The “ordinary voter”, whom Mr Beckett thinks needs his patronising support, is perfectly capable of measuring whether something is spin or based on logic and wholly verifiable figures in the public domain. Like the great majority of voters, I am not in the habit of inventing circumstances to suit my case. I leave such behaviour to Mr Becket and the leaders of the Leave campaign.

It is interesting to note that between 1939 and 1950 the UK population rose by two million. This was the famous post-war baby boom. Those babies are now in their late 60s and 70s. They are one of three post-war generations in the UK to have enjoyed the highest standard of living the country has ever known. But we are in grave danger of failing the current generation of young people. They need homes, good careers, job security and a wide canvas of opportunities. Brexit is a distraction from addressing those things. It has already weakened our economy, caused inward investment to tumble and companies to take jobs out of the country. These, unlike Mr Beckett’s letter, are undeniable hard facts.

‘A ‘business improvement district’ or BID is the excellent solution with an awful name’