OKEHAMPTON’S new Business Improvement District (BID) manager Duncan Swift sees the town as a “half-baked cake” with all the ingredients to be fantastic, it just needs to realise its full potential.

Eight weeks into the job he is brimming with ideas to bring that cake to pristine quality.

The chartered accountant, who grew up in Sticklepath and attended secondary school in Okehampton, has spent many years turning around the fortunes of struggling businesses and making people think differently.

In Okehampton, he is on a mission to bring people together and work in a cohesive fashion to make the most of the opportunities on their doorstep.

He says the Dartmoor market town does not need more to attract people – it has everything in spades from independent shops, to adventure activities, a beautiful park, rivers and thriving business parks, all a stone’s throw from the moor and the A30 – but it does need more people to know about it.

He will be using the next three and a half years of this BID’s first term to build the confidence and positivity of the town – and accessibility, better signage, a coach park and plans to reduce town centre congestion and anti-social behaviour (ASB) are all on the agenda.

Following a successful career working for the likes of Price Waterhouse and Grant Thornton with co-founding Azets in Plymouth among his achievements, Duncan, who latterly specialised in rescuing food production and farming businesses, was heading for early retirement but decided to take this post instead.

Duncan is the only paid member of Okehampton BID – its board of directors is made up of volunteers.

The BID works by collecting a levy from all the 270 businesses with a rateable value over £5,000 in the BID area which stretches from the town centre to the industrial parks on the outskirts.

This will raise around £150,000 each year to spend on initiatives to boost business and drive footfall. Every five years, members vote on whether to keep it going or not.

It has worked elsewhere to great success, most notably in Tavistock, which has had a BID for 15 years and helped put the town on the map as well as fighting against things which could harm it like on-street parking charges.

“As a business community it lacks confidence, the town [Okehampton] doesn’t play to its natural strengths and doesn’t realise its success,” said Duncan.

“There is a fantastic amount of inward investment taking place, there are 500 new homes already built and another thousand in the pipeline and a new £16 million railway station, a second one for Okehampton, just built in the heart of the business estate and new housing development.

“It has fabulous business parks that the community needs to make more of, a town full of independent shops where you can get everything you need and it has connectivity to die for – both in terms of broadband and the A30 dual carriageway access and rail.”