Shropshire Council pays out £56m in business grants
Shropshire Council has paid £56.32m to 4,825 businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic since grant applications opened on April 1.
The council is now urging any businesses that haven’t yet applied for this funding to do so as soon as possible.
The authority has received £91m of funding from the government to pass directly onto local businesses affected by the pandemic.
Shropshire’s small businesses, and businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, can apply for government funding through the Coronavirus Covid-19 Small Business Grant Fund, and Retail Hospitality & Leisure Grant Fund. Businesses must be business rate payers to apply.
The authority has paid 3,939 Small Business Grant applications, totalling £39.39m, and 886 Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant applications, totalling £16.93m.
It has also awarded the enhanced retail, hospitality and leisure relief to over 2,000 eligible businesses. Those businesses that qualify for this have been notified, and where there is no balance to pay there is no need for businesses to cancel direct debits, as the council won’t be requesting a payment. Any resulting credits on accounts are being refunded.
Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s cabinet member for assets, economic growth and regeneration, said: “We’ve assured businesses that we would be working as fast as we possibly can to process these applications, and I hope these figures show that we are doing just that. This is a huge task as only 13 out of the 314 local authorities in the whole country have more grants to pay out than we do.
“Each application is being assessed in line with government criteria, and unfortunately there are some businesses that have applied but don’t qualify for funding. We’re contacting each of these individually to explain why their application has been unsuccessful.
“We ask businesses to bear with us as we are doing appropriate checks and balances and – to help us – please provide accurate information on application forms and when asked to supply additional evidence.
“If any businesses haven’t yet applied for this funding, I urge them to do so as soon as possible.”
