BUSINESSES in Bradford city centre will be able to have their say this week on details of the latest proposals for the planned Business Improvement District (BID).

An open meeting is being held at 6pm on Thursday at the Great Victoria Hotel for the representatives of local and national retailers, leisure and hospitality firms, professional and legal services companies and other organisations to hear what projects have been included in the BID’s draft business plan.

The proposals cover a wide range of schemes under the BID’s four key pillars – Safe, Alive, Clean and Promoted – from hot-washing the streets to smartening up empty shops, from helping reduce anti-social behaviour to improving city centre lighting, from creating new festivals to bringing in special street markets, from marketing the city nationally to lobbying government for more investment.

BID development board chairman Ian Ward said: “We’re coming to the sharp end of the process to set up a BID in Bradford now and we need as many businesses as possible to engage in reviewing our strategy.

“This meeting is a key opportunity to find out exactly what the BID will aim to achieve and how the £2.5 million we raise through the levy will be spent.”

Then final Business Plan will be published in June and distributed widely before all of those affected in the BID zone are balloted for a decision on whether the five-year scheme goes ahead in September.