Chairman of BID Steering Group

Robert Gibson, of Wetherspoon's Green Ginger, has been appointed chairman of the Torquay Business Improvement District steering group. The BID project aims to raise £1.3million over the next five years through an extra business rates levy on the 620 businesses, plus other income. The money will be spent on projects which have been voted for by the businesspeople.

Mr Gibson, who was born, brought up in and had worked in Swansea, had previously run the London Inn for the company, having worked in Bristol for three years.

"I have heard from a lot of people how Torquay used to be, and wanted to get involved in improving it," he said. "We were involved in local events and worked with the police in Bristol. When I came down before starting work here last summer, I drove along the seafront and thought what a lovely summer holiday location it was, and that's what sold it to me."

The steering group has set up small zone groups for different areas of the town centre through which committee members can liaise with local businesspeople and feed back their comments to new town centre manager Ian Broadfoot.

Mr Gibson said: "We agreed that we needed to communicate with people on the ground and make sure we had their backing for what we are doing. There is a positive mood which we need to home in on, and tap into it."

Mr Broadfoot said: "The BID allows town centre businesses to take control of their own environment. We are trying to attract customers back into the town, and then once they are here it is the individual retailers' responsibility to attract them into their businesses."

A deep clean of the town centre streets is nearly completed. Mr Broadfoot said: "The response we have had has been very positive. The crew reckon that they removed more than a million pieces of gum from the pavements."

A series of monthly summer harbourside Sunday markets has been organised, and the Italian market recently in St Marychurch will be in town on July 9, 10 and 11. One of the events already being worked on is Christmas shopping, including a switch-on event and co-ordinated late night shopping on Thursdays.

The steering group is also keen to attract families back into town in the evening, and is working towards a nationally recognised Purple Flag award for the safe and secure quality of the town centre. Mr Broadfoot said: "Though the awards are made next year, we need to be working on it now. It is fantastic that we have Robert Gibson and Steve Goss from The Clocktower on the steering group to work on this. The town centre is safe and we need to let people know that."

Mr Gibson said there was already a strong police presence on the harbourside, supported by the work of the street pastors and the Safe Bus.

"The pastors do a great job, they are brilliant," he said. I have worked in busy city centres like Swansea and Bristol and have not seen such a presence."

One of the new initiatives is regular briefings with the police this summer through a Pub Watch scheme which arranged similar briefings before the Young Farmers arrived for their conference.