Former Royal Marines commando Rich Jones is the new chairman of Stratford BID
RICH Jones is a former commando who did stints in both Afghanistan and Iraq with the Royal Marines. He later went into risk management which some might say, combined with his military training, is the minimum qualification necessary for his latest task.
That task is as chairman of Stratford BID – or Business Improvement District – the organisation that represents around 430 member enterprises in the town and which has not had the happiest of experiences in recent times.
Its most immediate crisis was only a few weeks ago when Diane Mansell, the BID manager, departed in a sudden resignation after only around a year in the job. In a long letter cataloguing an array of complaints about her experiences, Ms Mansell accused the BID board of having “micromanaged every single decision that has been made throughout my time here” and claimed the board’s style had made “future management of services impossible”.
Ms Mansell is still on the payroll until 8th May but, not surprisingly, is on “gardening leave” until then. Meanwhile lawyers are involved, and BID cannot discuss her case – for obvious reasons.
So Mr Jones, aged 39 – who is the centre manager of Bell Court in Stratford in his day job – has a lot on his plate as the BID looks to find a new sense of purpose and direction in the coming weeks and months.
To this end the organisation has hired the strategic consultants Locus to do a root and branch investigation of the BID’s operations, with an expectation that they will deliver their findings by the end of May.
“We need it to be quick so the BID is in a position to deliver to its levy payers,” said Mr Jones. “The town needs BID. We’ve gone through Brexit, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis brought on by the war in Ukraine. BID is needed essentially to support the businesses and promote the town and encourage tourism.”
Mr Jones is quite blunt about the combined effects on Stratford of Brexit and Covid. Because of the town’s dependency on tourism and hospitality it suffered the fifth worst hit in the country as a result of a disappearing workforce and a collapse in visitor numbers.
“It’s been one massive hit after another for businesses in the town centre,” he said. “They’re facing unprecedented times – and this is why the BID is more important than ever.”
The organisation has taken some tough decisions as recently as a fortnight ago, announcing that there will be no Festival of Motoring or River Festival in Stratford this summer. (The Herald has launched a campaign to bring back the River Festival, which was extremely popular with the public.) No decision has yet been taken about the Food Festival, which normally takes place in the autumn.
For the moment, all eyes are on the review being conducted by Locus. BID is in the final year of its third five-year term and is hoping to get the backing from businesses to embark on a fourth term next year.
Mr Jones points out that the world is now a very different place from the one in which the BID came into being around 14 years ago. “Any proposal for a fourth BID needs to be relevant to the world we’re now in,” he said.
And he added: “We need an outside pair of eyes to find out what the town needs when we go for the new BID in April 2024. These people [Locus] are real experts and they’re independent, which is key.
“They’ve got six weeks, basically, to look at the BID, how it’s run, the structure of it and how it is serving its members and what is best for the town after 2024. Locus are here to do a full analysis of the work and the structure of the BID and to make recommendations going forward.”
Mr Jones makes the point that BID is made up of very diverse business sectors. “We need to make sure every sector is represented and heard,” he said. “Every sector has different issues, but there are also common issues.”
On one issue he’s quite emphatic. “I don’t see this as a poisoned chalice,” he said. “Not at all. I see this as an opportunity to build for the next term and make sure we’re not delivering what was put together for this term because the world is now a completely different place.”