The Government has announced that all existing grant schemes will be closed one month from today on Friday 28th August.
Nationally, the Small Business Grants Fund, the Retail, Hospitality & Leisure Grants Fund (RHLGF) and the Discretionary Grants Fund have collectively seen £10.76bn grant payments distributed to over 875,000 individuals, businesses and organisations, equating to over 92% of those eligible.
So far in Derby, £42.35m from the Small Business Grants fund and the RHLGF has been issued to 3,465 businesses and the Discretionary ‘Top Up’ Fund has issued around £1.3m. These grants have been vital to supporting our local economy and have helped to sustain our shops, restaurants, bars, hotels and many other businesses.
At present, there remains around £4.5m outstanding to be distributed.
Both the Small Business Grant and the RHGLF schemes are still open to applications but will close at 9.00pm on Sunday 16th August to allow time for the remaining applications to be processed.
For others who have applied for a grant but are yet to receive payment, the Council has committed to completing all the necessary processing before the deadline.
After 28th August local Authorities will be required to return any unspent funds to the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
Councillor Nicola Roulstone, Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement said:
I’m proud of the work we’ve done to support our local businesses. Our teams have worked tirelessly to make sure every request is processed as quickly as possible and they’ve done a fantastic job. Whilst we have almost come to the end of the schemes we do still have an amount of money available and we want to ensure that every last penny is used to help our residents and not returned to the Government, so if you do think you may be eligible, check the criteria and get in touch.