In a recent survey sent out by the organisation to town centre businesses and levy payers, a deep clean of the streets was cited as the number one priority for the BID to undertake.
The BID say that this not an extension of either Harrogate Borough Council or North Yorkshire County Council services and in some cases a BID can enhance the services they provide, including street cleaning and cleansing.
Prior to a BID approval council services should be ring-fenced, meaning that the BID should not have compensate for a reduction in Council services.
The BID has also said that they believe the town is well serviced by Harrogate Borough Council in terms of regular street sweeping and bin emptying, the work the BID will fund goes above and beyond the authority’s statutory duty.
The BID is now looking to appoint a three-year contract to undertake a number of cleaning duties, including power washing of all pavements and islands within the BID area on an annual cycle to remove grime, graffiti, chewing gum, algae and moss.
They will also be responsible for power washing a small number of key hotspot areas on a more regular basis, clean empty shop unit frontages as required, and carry out additional litter picking and hotspot cleaning early on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Harrogate BID interim manager Simon Kent said:
With the government announcing the phased reopening of from June 1, we want a deep clean of Harrogate town centre to commence shortly after.
There are approximately 25,000 sq m pavement in the main shopping areas of the town centre. Cleanliness of the town centre has been a constant theme through the BID’s development and is a priority laid out on our business plan.
We have put together a detailed tender document outlining exactly what we want a partner, or partners, to deliver on our behalf, and ideally we would love to award the contract to a local specialist, or specialists.
Total and utter waste of money. Is this the best they can come up with? It’s an outside space, not a hospital corridor! I have to work hard to earn my salary just so these people can put their hand in my pocket and spend my rates on this. Money was safer with HBC and I never imagined I would say that.
I totally agree with the comment above, we have empty shops all over the town with more to come.Oxford street is like a ghost street, we have the complete eyesore on Beaulah Street from a fire which happened how long ago?.
This deep clean should be done by the council, we are entering into the biggest recession this country has ever seen but at least our streets will be power washed once a year, time for these people to enter reality instead of living in a galaxy far far away, I hope interim manager means just that and his desk is being cleared as we speak, who appoints these people?