In last week’s Budget, changes to grants for businesses to help mitigate the effects of the pandemic were announced: Rate paying businesses in retail, hospitality, accommodation, leisure and personal care will benefit from the new Restart Grant scheme as the economy reopens.

Under the scheme, non-essential retail businesses will get up to £6,000 per premises to help them reopen and start trading safely. Hospitality, accommodation, leisure, personal care and gym businesses – which will open later under the roadmap or will be more impacted by restrictions when they do open - will get up to £18,000 per premises. 

There will also be additional discretionary grant support for non-ratepaying businesses who are not eligible for the Restart Grants, but which are experiencing a severe impact on their business due to public health restrictions.

The existing business grants schemes ending at the end of March and are replaced by these new grants, so businesses that have not yet applied previously are urged to do so now before the closing date of 31 March.  

Details of how to apply for the existing grants are available on the advice and support for businesses page, and further details on how we will manage the new schemes will be added when the Government provides details and guidance on how to administer them.

Torbay Council Leader Steve Darling said: 

“Support for our businesses is crucial to helping our economy out of the lockdown as we move towards recovery, so we wanted to flag up the new grants to make sure that all businesses in the Bay are aware of what’s coming up. In the meantime I urge all businesses to visit the advice and support for businesses page to see if they are eligible for any of the existing grants. They can be applied for retrospectively, even if you haven’t applied before, and the closing date is 31 March.   

“We’ll update our website as new guidance comes in, and you can follow us on any of these social media platforms where we give regular updates on support for business on our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages using the hashtag #TorbayBusiness.”

Torbay Council Deputy Leader Darren Cowell said:

“This has been a long and difficult winter for many of our businesses, and as we look towards what we hope to be a bumper summer for Torbay, as much as our economy depends on tourism and hospitality. So far Torbay has allocated over £63m in grants to support Bay businesses, and we want to make sure that all businesses apply for the grants that are on offer.”

Further details on business support announced by the Government can be found at www.gov.uk/coronavirus/business-support.