Dear Friends, A message from (Thomas Cattermole, Director of Customer Access) |
The grants paid out since the tiered lockdown system started in October continue to increase. The support grants paid to ratepayers in retail, hospitality and leisure from October 2020 to 31 March 2021 now totals almost £20 million. This brings the total paid to rate paying businesses in those sectors to £84 million since April 2020. In addition to these grants, retail, hospitality and leisure business also received 100% business rate relief worth around £60 million for 20/21. In the budget, the government announced that retail relief at 100% is to be extended until 30 June 2021, after which, it will be available on a more restricted basis until March 2022. Detailed guidance on this is awaited from the government. During the pandemic, government has funded two discretionary schemes that have allowed the council to help ratepayers and businesses of non-ratepayers too. The first one, the Discretionary Grant Fund, paid out £3.3 million to small businesses. This scheme closed on 30 September 2020. The second scheme funded by government is the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG). The current grant available is £8,964,793. The ARG is to help businesses in the borough with fixed costs, including those who fall outside the retail, hospitality sector. Over 400 of these grants have been paid worth over £ £4.25 million. With many applications in the pipeline, the council will pause receipt of new applications to the ARG from Monday 15 March 2021. The pausing of the scheme will be reviewed once further government funding announced in the budget has been confirmed and existing applications considered. Please remember as long as you have completed the online forms by Monday 15 March2021, the council will deal with it as soon as it can. Please note that the funding is limited and an application does not guarantee a grant. Details of the ARG and the other schemes can be found on the website here. |
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