Businesses have won a vital £20,000 grant to help launch a business rate-funded project to help regenerate Dartmouth through a major marketing operation.

The news comes as the town faces up to a weather-driven business disaster, warned business forum chairman Paul Reach.

The money will be spent on testing the viability of Dartmouth becoming a Business Improvement District – which could see up to £60,000 a year spent on promoting the town.

The scheme involves the entire retail business community shelling out extra on their business rates to fund the marketing campaign.

The £20,000 grant from the South Devon Coastal Local Action Group will pay for a 15- month project aimed at coming up with BID projects and seeing if there is the business community support for it.

The grant comes hot the heels of the disappointing news that the forum had missed out on £100,000 worth of grant money in the first round of the bids for Mary Portas Government regeneration money and another £10,000 in FSB Coastal Communities Fund cash for a transport feasibility study.

Traders from across the town – whether they are business forum members or not – are being invited to a meeting at the Guildhall's Clifton Room next Thursday at 6pm when the new grant support will be discussed along with the town bid for BID status, what it involves and what it means for the town.

Mr Reach said: 'It is a chance for the town to invest in promoting Dartmouth – doing what we have been trying to do for years.'

He added; 'In the long run the idea is to elevate the profile of Dartmouth and to get more business.

'This year, if you talk to businesses, it has been a disaster – mostly because of the weather. We have been through all sorts of things – foot-and- mouth and the economic crash – but this is the worst season I have seen.'

He also pointed out that one of the main issues raised by a recent business forum survey had been that Dartmouth was not being promoted well enough.

A BID is defined as a geographical area within which businesses have voted to jointly invest in local improvements, in order to enhance their trading environment. It is initiated, financed, and led by the business community.

The BID will include whole streets, or sections of streets, where the issues facing businesses are common. They are often focused on town centres but can be specifically for employment estates or cover all businesses in a town.

If sufficient businesses are interested in establishing a BID, a business plan for a five-year programme is then produced in consultation with businesses in the proposed area.

Mr Reach said that the business community had been pushing for BID status under the old business guild chairman Joe Murtagh before the new forum was formed earlier this year.