Is it pistols at dawn over a BID to support the life of Cranleigh High Street?

The Silly Season has continued beyond the summer into Autumn in Cranleigh. A village once the scene of battle between the Diamond Tops and the Roundheads is now a battleground for shops and businesses. 

The centuries may have changed, but Cranleigh is still fighting this time—because shops and businesses are being charged a minimum fee to improve footfall in the town.  

And some don’t like it.

A year ago, Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce announced that the town’s businesses had, with the assistance of Waveley’s Economic Development Team, voted to establish an Initiative called  … 

Business Improvement District (BID)

It has been successfully rolled out in Godalming and elsewhere in the borough.

The chamber claimed this followed a ballot of businesses, but it appears it wasn’t all businesses—just 34%! Those figures reveal that most shops throw mail into the nearest bin. All were contacted either by letter or by person.

The initiative aims to develop projects that benefit businesses in Cranleigh and encourage shoppers. It runs for five years, and a levy is charged to business rate payers in addition to their regular business rate bill. 

The funds would promote the town, fund the Christmas lights, and encourage traders to use the town as a market for their wares. Last year, there was all hell to pay when the Christmas lights turn-on ceremony was cancelled! Some say that inviting MP Jeremy Hunt to switch on the lights the year before was not a good move, saying politics should be kept out of such events.

These same initiatives are being rolled out across high streets elsewhere in the country. Horsham’s is proving hugely successful, according to its local newspaper.

However, this is not any old town; this is Cranleigh town, where residents and businesses love to create crises out of drama or, in earlier times, a PITCHED battle in the streets with Cromwell’s guys! Oliver, that is.

It appears not everyone in Cranleigh is happy with the situation—and that’s an understatement. Some are fuming, having received bills of up to £375 per annum. However, the big players like WH Smiths, Superdrug and M & S  are happily dropping their dosh in the BID pot. Even poor – cash-strapped Waverley is contributing. 

 Public meetings have been held to Ban the Bid, and notices have sprung up in the windows of shops and business premises shouting:

SAY NO TO THE BID

We hear from the mutter in the Cranleigh gutter that residents are hopping into cars and buses to Godalming and Horsham, voting with their feet and boycotting Cranleigh altogether.

After all, said one who wrote to the WW.

There are no banks, a building society open a couple of days a week, and even 140 the town’s only remaining department store, has closed its doors. It’s OK if you want to eat and drink coffee all day, but the businesses need to understand without us, the customer – they are in heavy-duty dog doo!. So, why don’t they stop fighting with one another.