In the heady summer of 2022, while Birmingham was hosting the Commonwealth Games, two leaders of the Westside Business Improvement District (BID) were compering a comedic parallel, the ‘Commonman Games,’ in the Walkabout Bar. Bestrew in a straw boater hat, Mike Olley, general manager of the BID, cracked jokes about the fact that the real Commonwealth Games had threatened Westside BID with legal action over the parody, before passing over the mic to to his “good pal”, Gerald Manton, who was appointed BID board chairman in 2022. The working relationship between Manton and Olley seemed harmonious.
Yet, by mid-2024, the two men would be trading accusations, each claiming to be a ‘whistleblower’ for the other’s incompetence — and, at worst, misconduct — which they say totaled at least tens of thousands of unnecessary costs for the BID, and the Westside businesses compelled to fund it.
In the end, this circular firing squad dynamic was fatal for both of them. In July 2024 Olley would be suspended, pending an investigation, and Manton asked to resign as chair. Olley was ultimately fired in February 2025 for “gross misconduct”, after 20 years service. Five other board members have resigned since July 2024 in the wake of the rupture. Olley says he’s now taking Westside BID to an employment tribunal citing unfair dismissal — although his former employers seem unaware of this.
“The BID is not aware that any legal proceedings for unfair dismissal have been issued by Mr Olley. The BID maintains that Mr Olley has at all times been treated fairly and appropriately,” Brian Hughes, the current chair of the Westside BID, tells me.
But Olley and Manton’s biggest beef is with each other. “I saw Mike as a member of my family,” Manton tells me over the phone. “I’ve never been so mortally wounded by someone so close to me.”
Grand plans
The backdrop to Olley and Manton’s war is a New Labour legacy. Introduced in 2004, Business Improvement Districts are intended to — as the name suggests — assist businesses in a given area beyond what the council can already do. This can entail anything from marketing and security support, to employing cleaners.
As of 2025, Birmingham has 11 BIDs covering the city; Westside’s iteration was initially established in 2005 as the Broad Street BID, before a 2015 name change. The body covers a plum city-centre area, home to the likes of Deloitte, HSBC, Symphony Hall and Utilita Arena and their continued existence is voted on by local businesses every five years. Funding is via a mandatory levy — for all businesses in their jurisdiction — on top of existing commercial rates, normally between 2% and 4% of the former’s total value. Last year, Westside BID collected £639,000 from the duty.
Like many of Birmingham’s other business improvement districts, sources say Westside BID is an incestous organisation, with unclear boundaries between public and private interest, that platforms the locally ambitious. BIDs, The Dispatch is told, can often feel like catty parish councils: full of gossip and petty fallouts. Westside’s iteration is no different.
And at the centre of the latest feud are Mike Olley and Gerald Manton. When I mention either man to sources, I’m met with raised eyebrows and an impression of two raconteurish characters, full of the sort of grand plans and oddball schemes you find in a Just William novel.
The older of the two at 65, Olley is a prominent Birmingham figure with a political career going back to the 1990s — including a controversial (and unsuccessful) run as Labour candidate for the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner role — and a signature look: dark glasses paired with a trilby and silk scarf. According to sources, he has forays in the law, Chinese sanitary product importation and apprentice gunmaking, as well as stints as a Labour councillor for Tyburn and Birmingham Mail columnist. He describes himself on Instagram as a “civic thought leader.”
