North Notts Arena boss slams BID over unpaid levy court summons

The charity has been summonsed to Mansfield Magistrates over the unpaid invoice - £1,530 covering the year from September 2019-August 2020.

Bassetlaw District Council – the BID’s billing authority – will seek a liability order in respect of the outstanding payment on Friday.

Nigel, who has run the Bassetlaw venue since 2006, described the move as “obscene” as the arena is “100 per cent funded by the community”.

He added: “Our income comes from the tills at reception and on the bar and I feel it’s very unfair that our local community is being asked to support what is basically a business initiative.”

The BID charges a levy from businesses which is worked out as a percentage of their rateable value - in exchange for projects to benefit the community.

BIDs are voted in after a ballot of businesses in the community for five years and the levy is compulsory if a majority of businesses in the area support calls for a BID to be in place.

However Nigel said he would be voting against having a BID during a ballot next year when North Notts BID’s five year-term comes to an end.

Since the start of the pandemic North Notts Arena has had almost no income - with very little of £54,000 revenue left in the charity’s bank account after paying utility bills for almost a year.

Over the course of the pandemic Nigel has successfully secured grants from the Government and other sources such as the National Lottery Community Fund.

However these funds are restricted to supporting the survival of the arena while income is non-existent or developing future streams of income with, for example, a public IT suite.

Speaking about the BID levy Nigel said: “Our position is that we have no money to pay this charge and this rubs me up the wrong way on principle.

“We’ve been very successful over the last few years with our events programme but this was 50 per cent of our income.

“In March we had to refund over £15,000 in ticket sales and I don’t know how we’ll pay this bill.

“We have £1,216 in the bank at the moment which was raised by a local woman to keep us going.

“Do we use that to pay for a business initiative? Surely it’s immoral to have the local community funding a business organisation.”

Reacting to Nigel’s comments, Sally Gillborn, chief executive of North Notts BID, said the BID had supported members throughout the pandemic – ensuring they were kept up-to-date with vital information relating to grants, government updates and through projects including the North Notts Savings Service, Maintenance Support Service and the LoyalFree app “to name a few”.

She said: “We have also just launched our new digital training platform and a new information-sharing system to drive down low-level crime and antisocial behaviour across the district.

“While we appreciate times are tough, particularly for businesses within the hospitality industry, the BID levy has to be collected by the council and all billing, collection and enforcement is bound by their due processes.”

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