The final plan keeps the rise to 1.7%: a £10,000 rateable value means £170 a year. Ballot papers go out 20 October and must be back by 5pm on 19 November.

Chichester BID has published the final business plan city centre businesses will vote on this autumn, and none of the three changes it consulted on in August have been dropped. The levy rises from 1.25% to 1.7% of rateable value, vacant listed buildings lose their exemption after three months, and the 2026 rating list is fixed for the whole five years.

We said in August that we would come back when the final plan landed. It is now on the BID’s 2026 ballot page as a 11-page PDF, and it is the document that decides what happens to about £1.6 million of city centre money between 2027 and 2032.

What a business will actually pay

The BID publishes a guide table of annual costs at the proposed 1.7% rate. The £5,000 threshold stays, so any premises assessed below it pays nothing.

Rateable value Annual levy at 1.7% Weekly
£5,000 £85 £1.63
£10,000 £170 £3.27
£20,000 £340 £6.54
£50,000 £850 £16.35
£100,000 £1,700 £32.69
£250,000 £4,250 £81.73
£300,000 £5,100 £98.08

Once set, a levy stays the same for the whole term. The BID will use the 2026 Non-Domestic Ratings List throughout, so a business that succeeds at a rating appeal has its liability adjusted from the date the change is notified rather than backdated.

The plan gives four reasons for the increase:

  • lower overall rateable values following the 2026 revaluation
  • rising operating and delivery costs
  • the need to maintain the services businesses value
  • the average rate charged by other fourth-term BIDs

It also repeats the claim that softens the headline. “More than one-third of levy payers are expected to pay less BID levy than they do now,” the plan says, “while most others will see only a modest increase because of changes to their rateable values.” The BID does not publish the arithmetic behind that split.

You can check your own rateable value on your business rates bill or through the the government’s business rates service.

Where the money goes

The plan budgets £299,100 a year from the levy, plus £30,000 a year of other income. Over five years that is £1,645,500.

Two things are worth noting about that levy figure. It is calculated at 94% of the total potential levy, which the plan says follows guidance from Chichester District Council and allows a 2% bad debt provision and a 4% appeals provision. And running the BID takes £341,500 of it over the term, which leaves £1,304,000 to spend on the three priorities.

Chichester BID proposed spending, 2027 to 2032 Bar chart of Chichester BID's proposed five-year budget. Promoting Chichester takes 652,000 pounds, Organised and Safer City 456,400 pounds, Business Opportunities 130,400 pounds and the levy contingency 65,200 pounds. Running the BID costs 341,500 pounds over the same period. Total income is 1,645,500 pounds. Half the BID's money is earmarked for promoting Chichester Proposed five-year totals, 2027 to 2032. Source: Chichester BID, Business Plan for a Fourth Term, indicative 5-year budget. Promoting Chichester (50%) £652,000 Organised and Safer City (35%) £456,400 Business Opportunities (10%) £130,400 Levy contingency (5%) £65,200 Running the BID, five years £341,500 Total five-year income £1,645,500: levy £1,495,500 plus £150,000 of other income. Running costs cover collection, administration and non-project staffing. The four priority bars are shares of the £1,304,000 left after running costs. Graphic by Chichester Live
Half of what the BID has left after running costs is earmarked for promotion, marketing and events.

The running costs break down as collection costs of £19,000 a year, administration and professional fees of £27,300 a year, non-project staffing rising from £19,500 to £21,000 a year, and £5,000 in each of years four and five for the renewal process. A further £5,000 is set aside across those last two years as a reserve towards a fifth-term ballot.

Four small errors in the final document

We checked the plan’s own figures against each other. Four do not line up, and levy payers reading the document should know which is which before they rely on a number.

  • The results date is printed as “20 November 2025”. The ballot closes on 19 November 2026, so the year is a typo.
  • The daily cost for a £50,000 rateable value is given as £9.62. The same row’s annual figure is £850 and its weekly figure £16.35, which works out at about £2.34 a day. Every other row in the table is internally consistent.
  • Additional income in year two is printed as “£30,00”. The five-year total of £150,000 shows the intended figure is £30,000.
  • Business Opportunities in year three is printed as £36,330. The row’s other years and its £130,400 total only add up if that year is £26,330, which is also exactly 10% of the annual available revenue.

The headline totals, £299,100 a year and £1,645,500 over the term, are consistent throughout.

The record the BID is standing on

The plan carries a set of city centre measures, drawn from mobile phone location data supplied by Huq and from the BID’s own records:

  • Ground floor retail vacancy in 2026: 7.3%, against a national average of 13.9%
  • Footfall: 21.56 million in 2023, 22.67 million in 2024, 23.24 million in 2025, a rise of 7.8%
  • Spend per transaction in 2025: £26.48, which the BID says is 18% above the national average, on about 10,000 transactions a day
  • Visitors staying four to six hours: 3.8% in 2023, 10.8% in 2024, 12.9% in 2025

The vacancy figure is the striking one. On the BID’s numbers, Chichester has a little over half the empty ground floor shops of the average English high street.

The plan is careful about what it claims from this. “We are not claiming that these results are solely attributable to the work of Chichester BID,” it says, “but they demonstrate that Chichester is a thriving and successful city.” The Huq data is a scaled sample rather than a count of every visitor, which the plan also states.

What it means for you

If you run a business in the BID area, you have one vote per property. Two premises means two ballot papers, each counting separately.

The dates to put in the diary:

  • Wednesday 7 October 2026. The Notice of Ballot. Whoever is named in the 2026 rating list as liable for business rates on a property in the BID boundary on that date gets the vote.
  • From Tuesday 20 October 2026. Ballot papers are posted out. Information on appointing a proxy comes with them.
  • 5pm on Thursday 19 November 2026. Completed papers must be back. This is a receipt deadline, not a postmark deadline.
  • Friday 20 November 2026. The result is announced.

The ballot is run by Civica Electoral Services on behalf of Chichester District Council, as a confidential postal ballot. For it to pass, two tests must both be met: a majority of the votes cast must be in favour, and those votes in favour must represent more than 50% of the total rateable value of all votes cast.

If it passes, the levy becomes mandatory for every eligible premises with a rateable value of £5,000 or more inside the boundary, for the term ending 31 March 2032, whichever way an individual business voted. The boundary itself does not change, and the plan notes that any later attempt to change the boundary or raise the rate would need a separate Alteration Ballot under the Business Improvement Districts (England) Regulations 2004.

If you are a resident rather than a business, this still reaches you. The BID funds the Christmas lights and trees, the city dressing, the trails and markets, the gift card scheme and two street ambassadors. A no vote would end all of it on 31 March 2027, unless something else picked it up.

Sources

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