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Former Fremantle Chamber of Commerce member in bid to give port city fresh life

Jessica NicoCockburn Gazette

The former chamber chief executive, who spent the past two years working with the Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation in Onslow, is one week into his role as the new Fremantle Business Improvement District (BID) chief executive and he admits he already has a lengthy to-do list. “I’ve been in the role a few days and we’ve already got a business plan that will keep us busy for a year,” he said.

“I’ve come in really in a strategic role; I want the BID to have more influence and I want us to have more communication with the City of Fremantle.

“I also want to bring in external funding so we can grow the BID, leverage off the money that’s coming from the council and demonstrate that it is money well spent.

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“That’s my role: it is to come in and oversee from a strategic point of view how we can bring in partners, sponsors, festivals and fairs, markets and all the things we need to bring to Fremantle.”

Taking up the role after a number of discussions with Fremantle BID chairman Karl Bullers over how he could get involved with the organisation, both men agreed the key to bolstering local business was to get Fremantle thriving again.

“We want that retail mix and quirkiness that is Fremantle,” Mr Milsom said.

“We want to activate some spaces in the East End, the Spotlight area, we’re going to do cracker night again, we’re going to do the long table again and we want to grow that from 300 people last year to 600 this year.”

“I think it’s important that we have a really good conduit between local government and the businesses and I think that we can actually provide that, especially for the CBD.

“We’re confident going forward we can turn the BID into a real influencer.”