New Discretionary Grant Scheme opens for applications

WILTSHIRE Council has launched its local Discretionary Grant scheme after receiving over £5.1 million of additional Government funding to support small businesses.

This new fund is aimed at small and micro businesses that can demonstrate they have suffered a significant fall in income due to COVID-19, have ongoing fixed property-related costs and occupy property or shared office space with a rateable value below £51,000.

A one-off grant worth £5,000 will be awarded to eligible businesses to help them cope with the challenges presented by COVID-19. Eligible businesses include:

• small businesses in shared offices or other flexible workspaces such as mills, units in industrial parks, science parks and incubators which do not have their own business rates assessment
• regular market traders with fixed building costs such as rent, who do not have their own business rates assessment
• Bed and breakfasts which pay Council Tax instead of business rates
• Charity properties in receipt of charitable business rates relief who would otherwise have received Small Business Rates Relief

Cllr Philip Whitehead, Leader of Wiltshire Council, said: “We are pleased to be launching this additional scheme to help more small businesses in the county access much-needed financial supported. While this is a much smaller funding pot this time round, it will help those small and micro businesses that are not eligible for other grant schemes.

“I would strongly encourage businesses to complete the online application form and provide all the supporting documents required, to avoid any delays with assessing your application. The two-week ‘application window’ is a fair way of supporting businesses as they gather their supporting documents and does not disadvantage those businesses who do not submit their application quickly.

“We are continuing to feed back to Government that more funding is required to support Wiltshire’s businesses and local economy especially as businesses start to think about re-opening in the very near future.”

Applications for our local Discretionary Grant scheme must be submitted by 5pm on Monday 22 June 2020 via the online application form. Applications will then be reviewed and assessed with grants being paid from 22 June onwards.

Full guidance for applications, FAQs and the online application form is available at: http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/business-advice-support-covid19-grants