Business leaders call for new town manager

4:00pm Sunday 17th February 2013 in News By Wendy Brading

BUSINESS leaders have called on Colchester Council to untie is purse strings and pay out for a new town manager.


Colchester Business Group chairman Ewan Dodds said action was vital to ensure Colchester’s long term prosperity.


And he said an outlay of £100,000 for a town team would lead to a healthy economic return.

However, the council says any initiative should be business-driven.

Comments(7)

TheCaptain says...
4:24pm Mon 18 Feb 13

So pay for it yourselves. You want the Council so the public to pay £100000 for your benefit.

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Jess Jephcott says...
4:40pm Mon 18 Feb 13

What happened to the last one? One big squabble from what I remember of it. Business owneres were too tight to put a BID together then, so what has changed?The council hasn't got any money. Why would it spend out on this bit of sillyness?

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Simon Taylor says...
5:19pm Mon 18 Feb 13

I understand that the Council rejected this suggestion some time ago. They do not have the funds requested and they felt that it risked repeating previous mistakes.

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martinaverre says...
8:37pm Mon 18 Feb 13

The businesses of Colchester only rejected the BID initiative due to the total lack of trust in the board we were given. It was not due to an unwillingness to pay.
Only 2 years ago the Council PAID a consultant to inform them what should be done to improve the Town Centre. At a meeting 18 months ago the Consultant presented his views. Number one was that the Town needed a Town Centre manager. Pedestrianising was not high on his list. When pressed for their views the Council refused 3 times to follow the manager route. They have however found over £500,000 to pay for this High Street restriction scheme! They have wasted the cost of the Consultant.
If the Council were to engage a manager I for one would happily pay my share of the costs.
Martin Averre
Planet Ace Ltd,
High Street,
Colchester,
Trading 32 years in Colchester.

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Simon Taylor says...
10:45pm Mon 18 Feb 13

As always, it's a question of transparency and accountability. If a properly funded proposal with representative support was put forward, I think the Council would be more inclined to consider it.

We also need to remember that the town centre is the focus of many aspects of life in Colchester, not just retail, and that they should also be reflected.

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Reginald47 says...
9:22pm Tue 19 Feb 13

It seems all these people are doing is asking the council to hand over £100,000 for them to spend! As Simon Taylor says if they presented a properly worked out business case the council might be more willing to listen.

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martinaverre says...
11:12pm Tue 19 Feb 13

These people are not asking the Council to hand over £100,000 for them to spend. They are suggesting that if the Council listened to paid for advice and got the Town manager post running they would gain more than the cost of the post. Plus local business would be involved and pay most, if not all the costs, in the end.
In the town there are over 600 individual businesses that need the Council to create the central focus that none of the individual businesses can achieve on their own.

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