ONE IN four town centre businesses have not paid their share of money to the controversial Keighley Business Improvement District.

A Freedom of Information request by the Keighley News has revealed traders are currently withholding £33,000 from the company that is demanding cash for improvements and promotional events to attract more visitors and shoppers to the town.

ForTeas café owner Janet Croden, figurehead of the no-pay movement, is refusing to pay at least a third of her share until later in the year.

BID chairman, Graham Benn, this week admitted the arrears would affect spending but insisted the £200,000 already collected from local businesses would ensure planned family events will still go ahead on the last Saturday of every month.

Mr Benn, manager of DIY Solutions in Cavendish Street, said: “It will obviously have some effect because we’d planned to spend everything we got.

"It won’t make a massive difference – we’ll just have to cut back on some little things.”

Mr Benn said KeighleyBID leaders had not yet decided what to do about non-payers, but will discuss the issue at their meetings.

He added: “We’re hopeful more people will see the benefits of the BID and pay the money. We have events like a street party, seaside entertainment and sports-themed activities this Saturday.”

Most of the 380 businesses sent bills last winter have paid up, generating £200,067 for the BID, but there is still £33,265 outstanding, and 96 businesses have not yet fully paid up.

Of these, 77 businesses are at the second reminder stage but no court proceedings have been taken against them so far.

The figures were revealed this week following an FOI to Bradford Council, which is collecting payments on behalf of the KeighleyBID company.

The local authority said more than 85 per cent of the money had been collected, which was comparable to the collection rates of other BIDS throughout the UK at this stage in the financial year.

Businesses that have a rateable value of more than £6,000 have to pay a levy on their figure, which is handed to KeighleyBID to generate a £1.4 million funding pot over five years.

Payment is required by law, following a ballot of town centre businesses in which 79 per cent agreed to the setting up of the BID.

Mrs Croden, who runs wartime-themed cafe ForTeas in North Street, was threatened with imprisonment and bankruptcy earlier this year after refusing to demands to pay her £97 levy.

She this week said the BID is costing her the equivalent of a 25p a day, so had paid only two of the three instalments demanded by Bradford Council and saw herself as “in credit” for the next few months.

She added: “I’m not surprised some traders haven't paid.

"We’ve had nothing back from them. Everything is happening in the town centre.

“They’ve had a giant chicken, a big hippo, piano-playing nuns and dancing trolley women, but it’s as if we don’t exist.

“Whenever there are things in the town centre, we die. The cafe is empty and there’s no point opening.”

BID manager, Paul Howard, told the Keighley News that BID events are being organised across the whole town centre area, including four days of attractions in August and October in Church Green, only yards from the Forteas cafe.

He added: “The whole purpose is to bring people into the town centre and that will be in everyone’s interests. It’s about making sure people coming to Keighley rather than going somewhere else.”

There will be Euro-themed sports activities on Saturday next to the bus station and in Cavendish Street, including a smoothie-making bicycle, penalty shootouts, freebies and roaming mascots.