LAUNCH OF DISCRETIONARY GRANT SCHEME

Herefordshire Council today launched the process for business owners to apply for the additional discretionary grants fund that the Government has introduced that will help provide assistance to some of the businesses that have not had access to other support schemes.

This discretionary grants fund is managed by the council and will award grants reflecting the size of business, level of fixed property costs and scale of impact experienced. The amount of funding the council has received is limited at £3.2m, consequently the scheme eligibility criteria is limited initially to those categories of businesses that are specified in central government guidance.

Businesses eligible to receive this new funding must be a small or micro business, a charity, or social enterprises with a turnover of not more than £10.2m and fewer than 50 staff. Applicants must also be either:

• a small businesses in shared offices or other flexible workspaces;

• market traders with fixed building costs who do not have their own business rates assessment;

• bed & breakfasts which pay council tax instead of business rates or;

• charity properties in receipt of charitable business rates relief.

This scheme is now open and completed applications must be received by midnight on the 28th June 2020.

Further details, the full eligibility criteria for businesses and how to apply can be found on the Herefordshire Council website HERE

In distributing this funding we are trying to help as many businesses as possible, while continuing to press government for further funding to support the local economy and help us build back better. If there is funding remaining in the scheme after the first round we will open the scheme more widely as we recognise that there are still other businesses who have slipped through the cracks of the various central government support.

Other support the council continues to give to businesses includes £52.4m paid out to more than 4,500 businesses in the county (up until 31 May 2020) in government grant funding.

All the information on the government schemes can be found via the Marches Growth Hub website HERE