Falkirk’s Business Improvement District is promoting the strengths of collaborative working to make the town a better place to visit, work and invest in, writes Ken Mann

Talking the talk is one thing, delivering on promises quite another – and Falkirk hasn’t been found wanting on either measure. Promoting the strengths of collaborative working is crucial – and presenting the tangible results of broad-based team effort even more so.

However, as this was one of the first towns in Scotland to have a Town Centre Management initiative, it is perhaps no surprise to learn that it has advanced the chief principles of that structure to be become one of Scotland’s first Business Improvement Districts [BIDs], led by an organisation with the appropriately aspirational title, Falkirk Delivers.

Making Falkirk a better place to visit, shop, work and invest is its basic remit. Alex Fleming, BID Manager at Falkirk Delivers, explains: “As a Business Improvement District we are an independent stand-alone business limited by guarantee. We receive some grant funding from the [Falkirk] Council on an annual basis but the majority of our funding comes from a levy which is paid by the BID members – businesses within a designated area of the town centre. We also leverage in significant funding from other streams on a project by project basis.”

She adds: “The levy is based on one per cent of the rateable value of the property. It’s comparative – so for instance in Falkirk we have [the supermarket] ASDA, which has the biggest footprint in our BID area. They therefore have the biggest levy.

“We work to a business plan – and the BID is an elected entity,” says Fleming. “The businesses within the defined area vote every five years to continue, or not, with the BID. In fact we are working now on what will be our second renewal ballot – therefore it will be our third BID – and that will happen in May next year.

“Our business plan is based on significant market research that we do with the businesses – but also with members of the public.

“Feedback is gained from them and that is what will then make up the premise of the business plan.

So, for instance, in our current business plan, the businesses rated marketing and events for the town centre very highly and there was absolutely no mention of tourism or tourists.

“I would suspect that, moving forward with the obvious success of The Kelpies – the connections to the Falkirk Wheel and all the things that are happening on the tourism front – that tourism will feature quite heavily this time. But that will be up to the businesses to decide.”

Fleming says: “One of the strengths that the BID has in the town is the partnership working that we do.

“Our efforts on our own are a small contribution; these can be scaled up significantly with the right partners for the right project. That could be partners at a strategic level but also partners who are perhaps volunteers or community groups.”

An icon of the town is The Steeple – a priority project for restoration with the Falkirk Townscape Heritage Initiative, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Scotland. For its 200th anniversary, celebrated in September last year, the BID structure ably demonstrated its partnership credentials.

“We worked on an event plan with the Council, the Community Trust, and with other interested parties, part of which included working with the Police on the security aspect, working with various different council departments to get the right people to do the right thing at the right time,” enthuses its manager. “That was a massive success. We had some 6,000 people in Falkirk High Street. For anyone who knows Falkirk High Street as the narrow Victorian street that it is, that was no mean feat.

“At the other end of the size spectrum, and for the third year in a row, it has just been announced by Keep Scotland Beautiful that we are again Scotland’s Cleanest Town.

“We have paid to have a forensic audit done of every single street in the BID area on an annual basis.

We work very closely with the Litter Strategy Team of the local authority – it is just about joined up thinking.

“We have had our share of national businesses retrenching but one of the strengths that

Falkirk has always had has been a very healthy mix of national retailers which sit alongside independent businesses; we have a thriving independent business sector.”

Falkirk is one of just 10 Test Towns for 2015 drawn from around Britain. A significant business incubator challenge, it is set to create a new wave of so-called “responsible entrepreneurs”.

Created by the Carnegie Trust UK, enterprising individuals can enter their start-up business idea.

The strongest is given support to pilot their business concept in the town centre for a five-day period during October. The ability to run their business from a unit in The Howgate shopping area, with its weekly footfall of 100,000 people is, literally, a highly visible benefit.

The most promising concept will be pitched against other winners from across the UK. The ultimate winner is awarded £10,000 in funding.