Surrey County Council (SCC) has teamed up with Kingston Council to support the town’s Business Improvement District (Bid).
As well as providing financial backing of 1 per cent on top of its business rates, the council, based in Penrhyn Road, will use the opportunity to explore creating Bids in its 11 Surrey district authorities.
The vote to extend Kingston’s Bid, which has been running since 2005, for another five years, closed on July 23.
A Bid is funded by a 1 per cent levy on businesses’ rates, to fund increased cleaning, policing and other initiatives, all aimed at improving towns and trade.
Leader of SCC Councillor Andrew Povey said: “As a major employer in Kingston, we support extending this scheme, which has done so much to make the area safer, cleaner, more accessible and more successful economically.
“In the right circumstances, Bids are an innovative way to make town centres more interesting places, where businesses want to relocate to and where people want to live, work and shop or relax with friends over a drink or meal.
“We want to explore, together with our partners in the boroughs and districts, whether there are any opportunities for Surrey’s towns and if there are, whether businesses would support them.”
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