Janice Gillespie
Head of Resources
North Tyneside Council
Quadrant East, Cobalt Business Park
NE27 0BY
01/02/2019
Janice
We would like to thank you for taking the time last week to explain the North Tyneside Council budget for 2019/2020 to the Management Group of the North Tyneside Business Forum and for consulting with the business community on this important work.
The North Tyneside Business Forum have made every effort to encourage our wide-ranging membership of 1,300 businesses to take part in the budget consultation exercise with many businesses attending public consultation meetings, responding directly to the authority or attending the North East England Chamber of Commerce budget meeting.
We would expect there to be a range of individual views but the Management Group felt that given the importance of the topic that we make a formal response so that the views of the lead business organisation are recorded.
- We recognise that the proposed budget is complex and that it is a challenging budget to set with many decisions necessary which inevitably will have an impact on residents and businesses.
- We welcome and support the continued investment in our town centres, in particular North Shields, and understands that funding for this must come from other sources hopefully from the High Street Fund rather than the core Council budget.
- We are pleased that funding and support has been provided for start-up and existing businesses in North Tyneside through the extension of The Business Factory project as we strongly believe that this is essential for economic growth.
- We support the proposals which have been approved for a new Business Rates pilot in 2019/2020 through the North of Tyne Combined Authority although like the Council we need to review how this pilot works.
We would be grateful if you and your team would keep us informed on progress and please feel free to consult with us when you consider it appropriate.
In conclusion the proposed budget in principle is supported by the North Tyneside Business Forum as it is the key component in helping to make North Tyneside a great place to live, work and visit.
I trust that the above is in order any questions please call.
Kind Regards
David W Bavaird
Chair of North Tyneside Business Form