Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, has expressed her concerns about the limits of the Business Investment Districts Scheme (BIDS) as an instrument for revitalising the town of Bray.

De Burca made her comments following a discussion of the BIDS scheme at a recent meeting of Bray Town Council. “We were discussing the very necessary commercial rejuvenation of Bray Town Centre” she says. “The BIDS scheme was talked about as something that could help to lift Bray out of its current state of decline. Obviously anything that will help to revive the business life of the town is very welcome. But I would have serious reservations about whether this scheme will offer anything useful to Bray in its current situation”.

The Green Party councillor says that the BIDS legislation was introduced by Minister Roche in June 2006. Its aim was to open up opportunities for businesses across the country to become involved in Business Improvement Districts. According to de Burca, while this sounds very admirable, in practice it means that the legislation empowers a group of businesses, following a local plebiscite of ratepayers, to raise a special contribution from all the businesses in a defined area. These special contributions are to pay for the carrying out of local services and improvements which are additional to those being provided by the local council.

“The BIDS scheme is a mechanism whereby businesses come together to collectively fund the improvement of their town” says de Burca. “While this is very desirable, in Bray’s case where many businesses are struggling to survive, how practical is it to ask them to pay out more for the development and improvement of the town”? De Burca claims that if the Department of the Environment were to provide funds to match what the local business community raised, this would make a successful rejuvenation process much more likely.

“Minister Roche must have been aware that in a town like Bray which is in commercial decline, asking ratepayers to put their hands in their pockets when confidence is very low and business prospects are poor, is not very realistic” she says. “What is clearly needed is a scheme whereby the Government matches euro for euro the funds that the business community is prepared to invest in the town. This is the only way that towns like Bray will be helped to turn their commercial fortunes around”.

De Burca says that Minister Roche has not yet provided a penny to Bray to help in the rejuvenation of its town centre. “The Town Rejuvenation Committee which was chaired by my colleague Cllr Ciaran o Brien has come up with a wide range of very practical recommendations for the improvement of Bray Town Centre” she says. “It is time the Minister put some of his Department’s money where it is really needed – in the rejuvenation of his own Town Centre”.