Covid-19

UK Open Covid Grant Funding (Jan 2021)

UK Open Covid Grant Funding (Jan 2021)

Local Restrictions Support Grant

What you get:

Payments are made per every 14 days of restrictions. 

  • £467 for business with a rateable value of £15k or less.
  • £700 for business with a rateable value over £15k, but less than £51k.
  • £1050 for business with a rateable value over £51k

Eligibility:

  • is based in England
  • is in an area subject to Tier 2 or Tier 3 local restrictions since 1 August 2020 and has been severely impacted because of the local restrictions
  • was established before the introduction of Tier 2 or Tier 3 restrictions
  • has not had to close but has been impacted by local restrictions

Note: Councils have the ultimate say in determining eligibility, not Government. We highly recommend emailing members of the council, forming rapport and arguing your case. Our industry has been forgotten about during Covid 19, but from my personal experience, councils are now starting to recognise this, but you have to fight your case.  

More info:

Click here

How to apply:

Via your local council (click here to find yours).

Top Tip: We have success in finding the right person at the council by both phoning and emailing the business rates team and asking for them to point us in the right direction. 

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Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG)

What you get:

Unknown. There is little documentation or specifics on monetary figures available for businesses.

Eligibility:

Local councils have the freedom to determine the eligibility criteria for these grants. However, we expect the funding to help those businesses which – while not legally forced to close – are nonetheless severely impacted by the restrictions.

This could include:

  • businesses which supply the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors
  • businesses in the events sector
  • business required to close but which do not pay business rates

Note: We emailed the council explaining our situation: We have not been forced to close, but we sell software to businesses in the Event industry. Will we be eligible for this fund?

The response we received was:

Hello Bill

Thanks for contacting.

I am just finishing off the necessary work for both the LRSG (Open) Scheme and the Additional Restrictions Grant Scheme as well as preparing for the new national lockdown top up grant from 5 January 2021. We are aiming to get all of those schemes live within week commencing 18 January.

I will be updating the web pages with full information once we are ready to go live. From the information you have given it looks likely that you will be eligible and we are giving priority to those businesses that we weren’t able to give discretionary funding too because the funding ran out as well as businesses that haven’t received any grant help at all.

So please hold tight and I will contact you again when I have the detail so that I can advise you further.

Kind Regards

Laura Fricker

Service Lead Revenues, Benefits & Customer Access

Exeter City Council

More info:

Click here

How to apply:

Via your local council (click here to find yours).

Top Tip: We have success in finding the right person at the council by both phoning and emailing the business rates team and asking for them to point us in the right direction. 

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