WORK on the Newtown Business Improvement District (BID) has been put on hiatus until October.

At this month's meeting of Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn Town Council, strategic and corporate projects chair Cllr Richard Williams informed members that those working on the BID had "deferred everything until October" due to the coronavirus crisis.

BIDs are business-led and business-funded regeneration projects, fixed for up to five years, and they generally deliver projects designed to improve the trading environments for the business communities that they represent.

They are in a defined area within which businesses are required to pay an additional tax known as a ‘levy’ in order to fund projects within the district’s boundaries.

The income raised from a BID levy for Newtown could see a range of schemes delivered, from initiatives designed to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour to projects aimed at encouraging visitors into the town rather than driving straight past it and will link in with other initiatives already taking place in the town.