Another key milestone towards the delivery of Bournemouth’s Town Centre Vision has been reached as the Council reduces its shortlist of potential private partners to three.

The companies now battling it out for the chance to work with Bournemouth Borough Council to deliver around £330million of improvements to the town centre include Morgan Sindall Investments, a consortium of Crest Nicholson and the Trevor Osborne Property Group and a consortium of Cathedral Group and Resolution Property.

The decision follows three months of competitive dialogue in which six firms put forward their ideas for the town and presented evidence of their ability to help deliver the vision.

Cllr John Beesley, Deputy Leader of Bournemouth Borough Council, said: “We’re grateful to all the firms who bid for the opportunity to work with us. The standards were incredibly high and some very exciting ideas have been put forward for the town. We’re looking for a company which has a strong commitment to Bournemouth, which can generate bold ideas to help keep us on the map and which has the wherewithal to make those big ideas a reality.”

Stage two of the competitive dialogue will see the remaining three bidders challenged to come up with a plan for delivery of the Vision; from site specific ideas to the legal and financial structure of the partnership with the council.

The result will be a regeneration company owned jointly by the council and its chosen private partner. The council’s investment to that partnership will be land assets (including some surface car parks), which will be matched in value with cash from the private partner.

The ambitious plans from Bournemouth Borough Council will bring new leisure attractions, shops, cafes and restaurants, offices and homes as well as a thriving events programme and improvements to traffic and transport and public spaces.

The Vision Board will put forward its preferred bidder to Cabinet in May and the formal partnership will be formed by September this year.

www.towncentrevision.co.uk

It used to be the case that filling in a form and sending to the issuing office involved picking up a pen, exercising a little manual dexterity, folding, tucking the form into an envelope, adding a stamp and into the post box. Job done.

From April 2010 H M Revenue & Customs are converting this paper process into an electronic process and for some of us there will be no choice in the matter – we will have to switch on our PC’s, get online, login and file the forms online.

The reason for the change, quite simple really, if you file online the data is received, checked and processed by a machine that requires no training, does not take comfort breaks and is happy to work 24/7 as long as you can maintain its power supply.

Chamber members Hixsons Business Advisors describe details of the returns that will need filing online from April 2010.

“Every business in the UK that employs people, that stops their tax and National Insurance contributions, will need to submit their year end payroll returns online this year.

Additionally all traders that register for VAT after the 31 March 2010 and existing businesses with turnover based on 2009 returns in excess of £100,000 will have to file their VAT returns online from the 1 April 2010 - in both cases there are likely to be penalties if you either fail to file online, or if you are late filing your return.”

Anybody starting to get a nasty feeling about this? What if you live in an area where there is still no broadband access? What if you have no interest in computers or how they work? What do you do, rope in the kids in the hope you can dislodge them from Facebook long enough to file online for you?

We leave the last word on this issue to Hixsons Business Advisors.

“Providing you have internet access and reasonable computer skills you should have no problem signing up for online filing and dealing with the practical filing processes. However the clock is ticking. As we approach the end of March more and more traders will be attempting to register and the access lines may get a little congested. Best to register as soon as you can.

“Any readers who have concerns about how to register, or if they would like someone to do it for them, we are happy to receive your calls.”

So there you have it – fire up your computers or call someone who can do it for you. Seems yet again that the only winner is our Government who have transferred yet another processing cost to the hapless UK business community!