BID extortion racket

We assist Councils to force BIDs (Business Improvement Districts) into towns in order to raise more revenue out of the businesses.

Keith Parkins
Light on a Dark Mountain
2 min readJun 20, 2022

--

This is appalling.

But at least we now know.

We force BIDs onto towns to extort money from local businesses.

It is hard to believe there are still naïve local businesses who think a BID is created to support them or help their local town.

Remember the good old days of the Soviet Union when a leader would be elected with 98% of the vote?

Experience Guildford carried out a survey of local business.

Over 95% find stated that they find our marketing, promotion and events programme (such as Street Festivals, Markets, Seasonal Events and Trails, Healthy Guildford Day) are important to their business.

Really, over 95% happy with the performance of Experience Guildford?

It was not an independent survey, it was carried out by Experience Guildford, thus worthless. The respondents were self-selecting, which again renders the survey worthless.

Actually even worse. Mosaic Partnership who brag they force BIDs onto town centres, the same Mosaic Partnership that Experience Guildford paid to produce a survey result that shows over 95% happy with the performance of Experience Guildford. One could not make up this shit if tried.

We do not know what the questions were. It is all too easy to get the result you wish for with carefully crafted questions. Especially when the results are what Experience Guildford paid for, and the survey carried out by a BID parasite that brags the service it offers is to force BIDs onto local towns to extort money from local businesses.

What then is the truth on the ground? From my own random sample, wandering around talking to a range of different local businesses, 100% opposition to Experience Guildford. Not a single business wishes to see them continue.

Of the businesses I have spoken to, I have yet to find any who support Experience Guildford, and there is now talk of refusal to pay the BID Levy. Businesses object to an enforced levy, little more than an extortion racket, for which they see no benefit.

We have parasitical organisations, in addition to the BID itself, associated bottom feeders Mosaic Partnership, Loyal Free app, Mi Reward app, that suck the life blood out of local businesses.

At least with the Mafia, receive protection.

--

--

Keith Parkins
Light on a Dark Mountain

Writer, thinker, deep ecologist, social commentator, activist, enjoys music, literature and good food.