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Turley and Colmore BID: Contributing to Birmingham City Centre

As part of a series of articles and blogs marking our 20th anniversary in Birmingham, Senior Director, Mike Best gives his personal account of his last 11 years as a board director of Colmore BID and the contributions this has made to the city.

Turley had moved into offices on Colmore Row at the heart of the district in 2007 and we were getting involved in more city centre projects, as well as supporting the early work on the Big City Plan. Joining the BID board was an opportunity to make a wider contribution to Birmingham.

BID stands for ‘Business Improvement District’ and they are formed by balloting businesses in a defined area to pay a levy (as a small percentage addition to business rates) to fund improvements and contribute to the management of the area over and above an agreed baseline with the local authority. A BID term lasts five years.

The board was made up of senior leaders from big corporate firms, SMEs like Turley, the growing hospitality sector, two city councillors, West Midlands Police, the transport authority and the council’s City Centre Management team.

Public realm

Given my professional interests, I was asked to chair the public realm working group. In those first five years, we pioneered BIDs leading on major improvement projects like Church Street Square.

This led onto the more ambitious Snow Hill Interchange Plan, which is now being implemented with works outside the station and Cornwall Street, with a long term aim of pedestrianising Colmore Row.

Place Marketing

In 2014, as we entered our second term, I moved over to head the Place Marketing group, working alongside PR and marketing specialists to help organise our flagship event - the Colmore Food Festival - which has gone from strength to strength as our hospitality sector has grown, with two Michelin starred restaurants now in the area – Purnell’s and Adam’s.

Over the years, we also delivered award-winning photographic exhibitions in public spaces, including Magnum Sports during the 2012 Olympics; Thresholds – which celebrated one of the earliest photographers who worked in the city in the 1840s; and Nicklin Unseen, which showcased the work of a university lecturer who captured urban landscapes from 1960s/70s Birmingham.

Safe & Sound

Into a third term and I moved again to chair the Safe & Sound group which oversees our Street Operations and Security teams, working closely with the police and city council. We provide a frontline service keeping businesses and premises safe, liaising on counter-terrorism and cyber-security, and managing our street community.

Homelessness is a sadly endemic problem in our big cities and Birmingham is no different. Rough sleeping has increased and is evident across the business district, often being conflated with people’s experience of anti-social behaviour and thankfully infrequent more serious crime. Our street wardens work closely with the council and other agencies to find help for those on the city’s streets, and that has brought us into contact with amazing charities like SIFA Fireside. Last year, the BID raised £40,000 and Turley has chosen SIFA as its local charity, raising funds for their ‘Work-It-Out’ programme and volunteering at their drop-in centre in Digbeth.

Over the past decade, I have served as deputy chair, sit on the board executive and Remuneration Committee, contributed to our recent governance review and now chair the City Centre Strategic Board, which comprises the council Leader, senior officers and the chairs of the five city centre BIDs.

I’ve also been part of three successful ballots where Colmore BID has secured some of the largest turnouts and positive votes by levy payers of any BID in the country.

The BID has been a catalyst for the wider business community to get together, and members of the Turley team have participated in community games, charity quizzes and the hugely popular Colmore Choir, which performs at the Food Festival and Christmas light switch on.

Through COVID-19, the business district is facing something of an existential crisis but the work of the BID to create that sense of community over the past decade will serve it well when we emerge out the other side.

For more information on Colmore BID please contact Mike Best.

27 November 2020