What is Camden Town Unlimited?
Camden Town Unlimited is a Business Improvement District, a business-led organisation that provides services for their membership and projects for their area. It’s elected, directed and funded by its member businesses.
How is the membership decided?
Every business within the area with a rateable value above £120,000 is a member, around 200 in all.
How is it funded?
Each member pays a mandatory 1% levy on it’s business rates, so the contribution is based on the size of the business. We use this to provide strategic projects for the area and cost-saving projects for our members.
How is it regulated if membership is mandatory?
We have to seek a mandate to continue though an independently run ballot of our members every five years, and pass this by majority of both number and rateable value, ensuring that the membership are happy with our work to date and keen for it to continue. We’ve been in operation since 2006, so are coming to the end of the our third 5-year term. At the 2016 ballot our membership voted for us to continue with an 85% and 92% yes vote by number and rateable value respectively. Our next ballot will be in February 2021.
Who decides what it does?
We develop a five year proposal for each ballot, which we enact over the term if successfully re-elected. We’re also governed by a board of directors drawn from the membership who oversee the work and can redirect things where need. For example, police and public sector cuts led to a worrying increase in crime in 2017. We stepped in, funding three police officers and a team of community wardens to combat this, while continuing to lobby for more public sector resources in the area.
How much can you really do with a 1% levy?
We’re small, but we’re agile in a sector that tends not to be, so we use that to our advantage. We know how to lobby and work with large organisations to get what Camden needs. We spearheaded the campaign to drop the HS2-1 link, changing national policy which would have decimated Camden Town. Over the last decade we unlocked £6.2 million to execute our vision for Camden’s High Streets by widening pavements, decluttering the roadway and delivering pedestrian-centric redesigns of Cobden and Britannia junctions.
We try to avoid spending on services and instead act as a platform to launch self-sufficient sister charities. Camden Collective is an allied charity which provides free workspace in vacant buildings. It began life funded by us, before moving through a grant-funded stage and is now fully self-sufficient. Collective provides direct member benefits: Collective users spend around £800,000 in Camden Town every year, the use of vacant buildings provides passive crime defense, it houses social enterprises like Camden Giving and North London Cares, and most importantly helps maintain Camden Town’s reputation as a place to work and visit. We’re modelling our newer Camden Highline project on Collective’s journey.