Harrow BID’s third five-year term began on 1st April 2024 after a successful ballot of local businesses. The purpose of the BID is to invest in the future of the town centre and to champion the interests of its businesses by giving them a stronger, collective voice.

A Business Improvement Area (BID) is a defined geographical area in which local businesses have voted to make a collective investment in improving the environment. Business-led and funded by a mandatory levy on all eligible business rate-payers, BIDs operate for a term of five years and provide additional or enhanced services as requested by their members.

The Harrow BID works closely with community groups, residents and the local authority to deliver on the key themes that were identified by our members and set out in our business plan.

Download our Introduction Leaflet here.

BID MANAGER

Louise Baxter

Louise helped develop the BID after moving on from roles at Groundwork UK and the Employment Team at Harrow Council. She is a strong networker who is responsible for establishing and maintaining working relationships with anyone who is likely to influence the experience you get when you visit the town centre.

STREET AMBASSADOR

Neil Greenhalgh

Neil joined the BID in 2022 after working with Harrow Council as an Enforcement officer for over 17 years. His role is to patrol the Harrow BID area interacting with those working, living and visiting the area, identifying issues that affect the overall appearance and wellbeing. Build relationships/liaise with local businesses assisting their operation on a day to day basis. Provide a welcoming face to the district for workers and visitors, assisting with local knowledge when required and work with partner agencies such as Harrow Council and the Metropolitan police to combat ASB and criminality via our HBAC programme.

OFFICE MANAGER

Laura Lyons

Laura joined the BID in 2016 after nearly 30 years working in Estate Agency, and latterly as PA to the Managing Director. She quickly made this new role her own and with her PA background the office is well organised. Her varied role includes managing and paying the invoices, collating bookkeeping documents for the accountants, organising and attending meetings to take minutes, maintaining the database, uploading information to the websites, designing leaflets and graphics for events and training sessions, maintaining and posting on our social media platforms and liaising with Harrow Council regarding BID levy queries.

THE BOARD

SUB-GROUPS

Three main executive sub-groups, composed of BID members and relevant members of the staff team, focus on specific aspects of the BID’s work and help the Board to make informed decisions on the direction of our work programmes.

The three groups are Marketing; Operations; and Harrow Business Against Crime. The frequency of their meetings is agreed by each group, some every quarter while others meet every other month. If you are interested in joining one of the groups, or attending one of their meetings, please contact us on 020 8863 9933 or info@ha1bid.co.uk.

An additional group provides an overview of the BID’s Finances & Governance.

FINANCE & GOVERNANCE

CHAIR: VIMAL PATEL

Finance and Governance group purpose:
Oversees budget setting, financial monitoring and staff matters.

OPERATIONS

CHAIR: TBC

Operations Group Purpose:
Helps to ensure the area is safe and attractive by monitoring cleansing in the BID area and enables issues of concern to be raised with the BID team and council officers. Delivers seasonal flowers and other initiatives to enhance the presentation of the BID area. Currently also delivering a pigeon control program, footfall counts, and festive lighting.

MARKETING

CHAIR: DAVID ROBINSON

Marketing Group Purpose:
Creates a marketing strategy covering events, advertising and media that reinforces Harrow as a destination to internal and external customers. Maintains a website, provides visitor information and markets our key assets, commissions market research, develops the BID brand, and oversees member communications.

HBAC

CHAIR: CHRIS PERDUE

Aims to reduce and prevent criminality and anti-social behaviour by reducing the opportunity to commit crime by the legitimate and lawful gathering, collation, exchange and management of all relevant information.

BID MEMBERS

The membership comprises BID levy payers and voluntary members.

Business occupiers liable to pay the Business Improvement District levy are admitted to membership in accordance with the BID Company’s Articles of Association.

Other businesses can be admitted as members, subject to BID Board approval, normally by making a financial (or in-kind) contribution or being of strategic importance to the delivery of the BID’s business objectives. Key groups include property owners and the Council. We encourage property owners as members, in order to promote a medium to longer term strategic focus for the BID’s work, complementary to our day-to-day, more tactically focused, activity.

The Harrow BID represents over 180 local businesses. Click here for a list.

BUSINESS LEADERSHIP

Working closely with the public authorities and acting as an authoritative voice representing the interests of the business community, our aim is to ensure that issues affecting the town centre are addressed and dealt with promptly.

Our priorities are ensuring the maintenance of a quality trading environment; helping to sustain progress, development and investment; promoting and managing change and securing a timely response to market changes.

DOCUMENTS

Baseline Agreement

Operating Agreement

Business Plan 2024-2029

Privacy Policy

GOVERNANCE

Governance is discussed on a regular basis in meetings, and we work with a consultant who is well versed on BID protocols.

THE BID COMPANY

The Harrow BID Development Group was the proposer for the BID in Harrow Town Centre and with the successful vote to establish the BID, the Harrow Town Centre BID Company Ltd is the legal entity that runs its activities.

COMPANY STRUCTURE

A Board of Directors, of between 8 and 12 members, is nominated and elected from/by the businesses which form the constituents of the district. The Board guides the work of the BID company with the support of four executive sub-groups.

LONDON BOROUGH OF HARROW

London Borough of Harrow is the billing authority in respect of the streets and property in the BID area. Two important legal agreements exist between the BID Company and the Council. An Operating Agreement provides the basis on which to collect the BID levy from the business constituents. A Baseline Agreement sets out the specification for town centre council services, allowing us to monitor these and ensure our own work is purely additional.

MEASURING OUR PERFORMANCE

Our work programme is evaluated by the following criteria and the findings are published in our annual report: