A PETITION has been launched calling on Dartmouth Business Improvement District to change its rules and regulations.

Several businesses in the town are lobbying the BID to hold an extraordinary general meeting to review its existing constitution, its boundaries and its charges.

Campaigner Gordon Anderson says he has taken legal advice and believes the BID will be forced to hold a meeting if at least five per cent of levy payers – around 40 businesses – sign up to the formal request seeking alterations.

But already he says the initiative has gained much more support from businesses in the town and those at Townstal as well as chalet owners at Norton Park.

Mr Anderson, of Alina Trade Ltd, wants to see changes to the present geographic boundaries of the BID; for levy exemptions to be given to those businesses with a rateable value below £5,000; and for there to be a reduced levy for those businesses not benefiting directly from the BID's business plan.

He said since he had spoken out in the Chronicle that the BID was forcing businesses out of Dartmouth he had been 'inundated with calls of support' for a review of the terms of the current BID.

'My local business fraternity in the hinterland [Townstal] would like me to formally request that an EGM be called, to review the geographical boundary, exemptions and a more sensitive scale of levy charges,' he said.

'I agreed to do so and explained that it shouldn't be a problem as Falmouth also did this with their BID. Falmouth BID thought it was worthwhile and quite simple to organise.'

For more on this story, see this week's Dartmouth Chronicle