Team London Bridge and Better Bankside lead the winners at Mayor’s awards

The awards, held at City Hall on Monday morning, were organised by London BIDs in partnership with the Greater London Authority and London Development Agency with the aim of championing BIDs in London and celebrating their achievements in the five years since the first BID was established.

Team London Bridge won the London BID of the Year Award. The BID's partnership with Southwark Police has enabled 35 hours of extra policing per week and the area has been classified as London's first “Community Security Zone" (CSZ) by the Metropolitan Police.

Its Building Bridges community programme has created volunteering projects, a youth theatre and a Christmas gift initiative.

The judges said the BID was recognised for its “efforts to make the area much safer and a better place to do business”.

Better Bankside won awards in two categories – partnership and community. In the partnership category its work to create a logistics group to foster cooperation between developers, contractors and stakeholders while major construction projects are under way around Bankside and London Bridge.

Better Bankside also won the community award for the Events Academy project which gave four local young people the opportunity to create their own businesses. Member companies gave mentoring and career support.

A panel of judges – chaired by the Mayor’s policy director for economic development Anthony Browne, and including Greg Clark, the chairman of British BIDs, and Tim Campbell, founder of the Bright Ideas Trust and the Mayor’s Ambassador for Training and Enterprise – whittled down the winners from London’s 23 established BIDs to recognise those which have made the greatest impact to their area.

"The diverse range of schemes honoured with these awards really goes to show just how innovative London’s BIDs have become in only five years, with huge benefits to businesses, customers and Londoners," says Boris Johnson.

"In these difficult times it is fantastic to see that businesses, large and small alike, are still keen to invest in their local areas and are actively helping to make the capital safer and more prosperous."

Both Better Bankside and Team London Bridge have this year won ballots of local businesses to confirm the continuation of their work. SE1's third BID, Waterloo Quarter, is currently seeking the support of its members for a second five-year term.