Prana Simon, Best of Health, Old Market, Dartmouth, writes:

For those of you who pay the Dartmouth Business Improve­ment District levy, I run Best of Health in the Old Market and I have watched with interest, since opening 14 months ago, the progression of articles, slings and arrows, projects and initiatives of the BID.

If I had been able to vote at the critical moment back in 2014, I probably would have said ‘no’ to the levy. But, ­arriving late, I was determined to get as much bang out of the dosh I was required to fork over as possible. So I got involved at a low level with Old Market signage, advertising and promoting the ‘Keep It Local’ card and supporting the board with some patchy liaison work in the Old Market.

The greater context matters a great deal in all this. Since last year the Dartmouth Tourist Information Centre has been de-funded and will close at the end of next season, as it stands today. Funding and services for the local hospital are being pulled. The town has seen a decrease in footfall since last year. Parking and the park-and-ride have not been very ­functional, despite promises to the contrary from the district council, which is itself working with a skeleton crew, with officers reporting ‘remotely’ to work due to national funding cuts.

Ultimately, with devolution of all south west local ­authorities, it is likely the local authority will disappear by end of the 2017-18 financial year. All this is the austerity backdrop to what is troubling every town in the South Hams.

The BID is broken beyond repair, so let’s not resurrect a project that clearly lacks support and cannot undo the argumentative mismanagement that it began its tenure with. However, there are portions that did work and there is a pot of money waiting to be spent for the good of the town.

When I look at things clearly, without a jaundiced eye, I see that much of what I have already put into the BID kitty will not come back, as it’s spent.

It is silly to expect a refund after you account for all the expenses and services that have been paid for out of that pot: managers’ salaries, Keep It Local project, temporary Old Market banners, Hawk Pest Control, London advertising, the Dartmouth Everytime ­website rebrand, the TIC etc.

The accountants would have to tally all that up and pro-rata the refund against the levy, all the while spending more of that same money to administer and process the return of it.

It sounds hopelessly short-sighted to me.

What if, as a town, we actually decide to take this opportunity by the horns and make ­something better happen?

I propose that the Keep It Local project could be more inclusive of more businesses, more effective and more valuable in real beneficial terms than anything the BID could launch. Keep It Local – as its own non-profit for social benefit company – has the potential. It already has 1,000 customer emails on its books – that’s marketing power that will be just wasted if not supported.

Keep It Local could, in part, rescue the TIC with a joint ­venture in Dartmouth branding that sells and self-funds. It could also focus on boosting footfall from local residents, who now fail to use the town they live next to, preferring to use Sainsbury’s, Lidl or Totnes because of town parking.

Keep It Local could work with the neighbouring villages as satellite businesses, and local services could get involved. In general, a sense of esteem and pride in Dartmouth could be built and the original intentions of well-meaning locals could prevail.

The scheme could retain group bargaining power for traders. When speaking to a cafe owner the other day, he said the BID saved him £400 in employer’s insurance for the past two year. So he actually saved overall, despite the levy. That’s how collective purchasing works when dealing with large corporate underwriters. Keep It Local could perform that service too.

The festivals that Dartmouth is renowned for are all projects that launched small and grew. I know from one of the founders of the Food Festival that it was a source of ridicule for the first two years, but now look at it. Building goodwill takes time, not just willing hands. The BID has had very many willing (and able) hands to direct it, but the focus was perhaps not fine enough and there were errors by some. The connections and networking, though, are still active and need to be utilised in order to boost Dartmouth.

I’ve talked to a lot of local people in business over the past week and everyone has good ideas about how that pot of money might work: most feel that the return of money in the circumstances would be a ­hurtful outcome for the town.

If indeed there are die-hard refuseniks who just want a few quid back, fine, refund them alone. But if the option was to present itself at the extraordinary general meeting of transferring the money to another project with wide local support, I would vote for that. Of course, a ­different business plan would have to be written and the long-term funding of the scheme looked at, but I don’t think it would be a waste to spend some of my BID levy on that consultation to explore options.

To illustrate one area in the BID business plan that is ­outstanding and urgent: we need proper signs for the town. What a difference that might make to businesses in the Old Market, Anzac Street, Foss Street and Victoria Road.

The town council has not spent money on good signs for more than 50 years, so it is not about to start now. Without BID money, grants would have to applied

for from the aforementioned ­disappearing local government bodies, the town council, EU and crowdfunding for any town advertising etc. How is that going to happen? It just won’t. Who will do it? Not me.

The street scene will instead be a jumble of temporary signs from individual businesses in various states of professional presentation vying for public attention. It is not really a good outcome for all that money ­collected for our benefit.

I address every levy payer when I say it is a wasted opportunity if we pass up the chance to recycle the BID kitty into real improvements for the town. Consider and vote for another programme that really could be something to be proud of.