BUSINESSES in Newport city centre are deciding whether Newport Now BID continues for a third 5-year term. But what is a BID?

A BID is a Business Improvement District, which is when businesses in an area.

BIDs fund events like Christmas light count downs, as well as projects like helping businesses with their signs, saving advice, and crime management and radios between shops, and street ambassadors.

BIDs are funded by the businesses paying an amount into a pot. In Newport the businesses that are part of the BID are businesses with a rateable value of £5,000 or more a year.

BIDs are set up when businesses in the area vote to create them and keep them.

Newport Now is one of 340 BIDs in the UK. Newport Now has been BID since 2015. At the last ballot, in 2019, 64% of businesses voted to keep the BID.

The vote for the next 5 years closes on November 28. 

For a successful Yes vote, more than 50% of businesses that vote, must vote in favour of keeping the Newport Now BID and of the businesses that vote, their combined rateable value must be greater than 50% of the area's total. 

(Image: Tristan Rees) Newport city centre Christmas decorations.

The Newport Now BID said it funded projects like events such as the Countdown to Christmas lights switch-on, Urban Beach, Small Business Saturday and Christmas markets.

The BID also funded events such as the Food Festival, Pride in the Port and the Big Splash.

In Newport, there are street ambassadors on duty 5 days a week, as well as night ambassadors on duty every Friday and Saturday night. These were funded by the BID.

Alongside the street ambassadors, the BID set up the Newport Business Against Crime Partnership, which provides businesses with free access to information-sharing software and the opportunity to join the CityNet radio system.

Newport Now set up a shopfront improvement grant to help businesses with new signage, painting, lighting and other exterior improvements, as well as savings advisory service on their energy, telecoms and merchant fees. The BID has said that more than £100,000 of savings have been identified to date.

The BID also made Newport Now gift cards, which can only be spent with participating businesses in the BID area to try and keep money circulating in Newport, as well as the Newport Now app, free to BID members, which offers deals to app users.