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Small businesses act fast to apply for new grant support cash
Published: Friday, 29th May 2020
Pendle businesses which employ less than 50 people are being encouraged to apply for new government cash grants.
Small and micro businesses have until midnight on Wednesday 10 June to apply for up to £10,000 as a cash grant from a total funding pot of £1.25 million.
The funding is designed to help them survive and recover during the coronavirus crisis.
The new Discretionary Grants are for businesses which don’t qualify for support from the Small Business Grants Fund or the Retail, Hospitality, Leisure Grants Fund.
Details about the Discretionary Grants, including how to apply, are on our support for business page www.pendle.gov.uk/covidsupport
Councillor Mohammed, Leader of Pendle Council, said:
“These grants will be a lifeline for small businesses and help them to survive as the government starts to expand the number of businesses which can start to re-open.
“The latest information on this can be found via our website www.pendle.gov.uk/coronavirus under advice for businesses re-opening,” he said.
Dean Langton, Pendle Council’s Chief Executive explained:
“These new grants are designed to help qualifying small businesses that have on-going fixed property costs and who have experienced a significant fall in income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic."
The Government expects the Council to prioritise the following business types for these grants:
• Bed and breakfasts which pay Council Tax instead of business rates
• Businesses in shared offices or other flexible workspaces, such as units in industrial parks, science parks and start-up incubator units which do not have their own business rates
assessment
• Charities with properties in Pendle which receive charitable business rates relief
• Regular market traders with fixed building costs, such as rent, who do not have their own business rates assessment.
“We have been working hard to get this grant scheme underway,” said Dean.
“And we’re contacting businesses as fast as possible to ask them to look into applying.
“If you do not fall into one of the four categories you can still apply, but those within the categories will take priority,” he stressed.
“Because of the limited funding available and the high number of applications we expect, we will need to carefully manage the amount of cash grants we pay to individual businesses,” he warned.
“It’s important that we help as many local businesses as possible within the government funding we have been allocated,” he said.
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