A BOOST of £7,000 to Tavistock Chamber of Commerce's drive to create a Business Improvement District (BID) in the town was finally agreed last week.

The chamber asked the town council for the grant funding several months ago, but a decision by its finance committee to back the application was turned down by the full council in July.

Cllr Ted Sherrell last week re-iterated his concerns, as the full council debated further backing by its finance committee.

Cllr Sherrell said: 'We are talking about public money here, in very difficult times. Is this good use of public money? The chamber has had a great deal of support from this council, but they are an organisation which represents the commercial sector, in effect they are like a trade union. Would we give a trade union £7,000?'

Cllr Brian Trew said: 'How are we going to look people in the face when they come to us for charitable money and we don't support them, when we've given £28,000 away in the last two years to a commercial organisation.

'Quite frankly, I think it's barmy and I totally support Cllr Sherrell.'

And Cllr Mike Harper said he could not see why the chamber needed £40,000 for a consultation process on the BID issue.

But Cllr Robin Pike said anything that boosted the commercial heart of the town and helped keep shops open needed to be considered.

He said: 'It's worth taking a chance. If it comes off and it's a success, we will have done the right thing.'

Cllr Philip Sanders said he had listened to 'a lot of rhetoric and very little fact' from his fellow councillors.

He felt the cash-strapped chamber was struggling to try and help Tavistock 'out of the doldrums', and a BID at least would lock larger, multi-national companies into the scheme, who have persistently refused to support individual ventures like the Christmas lights.

Cllr Ann Johnson said it was important to have a vibrant shopping centre and councillors should not forget the council was a landlord of many town shops and operated its own pannier market.

Cllr Sherrell's proposal to reject the application failed and the council accepted the finance committee recommendation.

Chamber chairman Nigel Eadie said he was 'delighted' to receive the town council's funding and backing of the BID scheme.

A meeting would be held on September 29 at the Bedford Hotel, to which all businesses in the town were being invited, said Mr Eadie.

'We will be talking to the businesses about the whole BID process, answer any questions and get feedback and ideas.

'We will also have a guest speaker, Phil Gordon, who is project director of the Dorchester BID — this is where the old Woolworths store was taken over by its manager, Claire Robertson, who was also very much involved in the setting up of the Dorchester BID.

'Dorchester is really bucking the trend economically, they have opened up a lot of shops as a consequence of the BID and the media interest in Wellworths, and we are hoping to get Claire along to talk to us as well,' said Mr Eadie.