OF the 250 or so Business Improvement Districts across the country, surely none of them has had a more difficult birth than Hexham’s.

Amid accusations of being denied a vote, some businesses questioned the validly of the poll which established Northumberland’s first ever BID, and took their challenge to the Secretary of State.

After a painfully slow deliberation, the verdict was verified and the BID was established six months behind schedule last October.

But with anger over the voting process still resolute in some quarters, 150 traders – a quarter of all businesses in the town – were summoned before magistrates last week for not paying their share of the compulsory levy to bankroll the BID.

Most coughed up to avoid a court appearance, but some were prepared to have their day in court to highlight their opposition to both how the BID came about and how it intends to spend the money.

The BID’s plans for the £1m at its disposal over the next four years remain rather vague.

Its first report, recapping its first six months until the end of the financial year in March, sheds little light on its aspirations.

Indeed, of the £113,000 received in levies, £72,000 remains in the bank.

And of the £41,000 actually used up, £37,000 was spent on staff costs and administration. The only tangible investment thus far has been from the £4,000 spent on marketing, which has included a 70,000-print run of a revamped Visit Hexham leaflet.

In her introduction to the annual report, BID chairwoman Janine Armstrong admitted it was early days, and there were doubters to be won over.

She said much of the activity in the first months had been concentrated on gathering the thoughts of the business community on how the levies should be best spent.

The summer will see activity cranked up with:

l A facelift for the Visit Hexham website

l A scoping study to review existing signage and explore new digital signage

l A programme of enhanced street cleaning

l An extension of the town centre’s Christmas lights

l Sunday markets

l Provision of training, business advice and networking opportunities

With money carried over from the 2016-17 levy, a total of more than £250,000 will be spent over the next 12 months.

Of that more than a quarter – £68,000 – will be go on staff costs and administration.

The marketing budget will be £70,000, to encompass such things as supporting existing events, as well as development news events to attract additional visitors and spending.

The budget on access and signage will be £34,000, to include the gateways into industrial estates as well as the town centre.

A similar amount will be spend on ‘Doing Business Better’ – an initiative designed to improve networking, the sharing of ideas and trading opportunities between firms in the town.

That will leave £50,000 on ‘The Hexham Experience’, to enhance the appearance of the town through better street cleaning, ‘greening’ projects and bringing empty premises into use.

Critics will argue the blueprint lacks innovation and is strikingly unambitious, with precious few new initiatives.

Some have already pointed out that the very essence of all BIDs should be to stimulate new investment.

They have questioned, for example, whether street cleaning should not be the responsibility for the local authority paid for through business rates. Is the additional levy not simply helping to subsidise existing council services at the expense of hard-pressed local businesses?

Indeed, these are early days. But with so much resentment and scepticism on the BID’s very reason for being, time is not on its side.

The tangible benefits promised by the BID will have to be delivered soon to unify the business community behind it.