HALESOWEN will be an irrelevant ghost town if ambitious plans for a Business Improvement District (BID) are rejected, it has been warned this week.

The chairman of Halesowen Chamber of Trade, Wayne Edwards, has outlined the desperate need for more than 400 businesses in the town to vote for the BID in a poll which will be taking place in July.

Halesowen is the first town in Dudley borough to apply for BID status which will require companies to pay a levy in order to fund the new organisation.

Mr Edwards said: “If the town votes against having a BID then we will be the laughing stock of British business.

“The town will continue to get worse, there will be more empty shops and we will struggle to attract any proper investment ever again.

“However, if we vote yes then we can put Halesowen back on the map.

“Local companies need to work together and prosper instead of struggling on their own.”

He added: “We will be driving customers to all the companies in Halesowen, so we can be a boomtown or a ghost town, that is how important the BID is.”

The BID, if successful, will help with the development of the town and tackle issues including parking and footfall, and will support businesses up until 2022.

High on the agenda will be increasing footfall within the town by working to provide safer and cleaner streets as well as investing an annual sum of £120,000 back into the town’s economy.

Halesowen and Rowley Regis MP James Morris is putting his support behind the town’s BID.

He said: “The next logical step is for Halesowen to become a BID, which will help change the way in which Halesowen High Street and the surrounding businesses interact with each other and visitors to the town.

“BIDs are important, and have proven to work effectively, because local traders no longer have to rely on the local authority.

“This firmly puts local traders in charge, because they are the people who know what is needed for the town to thrive.”

The Yes to BID campaign is being officially launched on Friday in Somers Square.

Ballot papers will be sent out in June and will be counted on July 12.