Government announces £617m grants for small businesses in shared spaces
The government today announced a further £617m in grants for small companies that work in shared spaces and are not eligible for business rates relief.
The departner for business, energy and industrial strategy (Beis) said the fund is aimed at small businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs.
Beis said it was asking local authorities to prioritise businesses in shared spaces, regular market traders, small charity properties that would meet the criteria for small business rates relief.
Businesses must have less than 50 employees and they must be able to demonstrate that they have suffered a significant drop of income because of the coronavirus restriction measures.
The maximum grant available is £25,000 and there will be grants of £10,000 and grants of under £10,000.
Jonathan Ratcliffe from Offices.co.uk said: “It’s great news – small businesses who were reaching the end of their cash reserves will be able to save their businesses using this cash grant. They’d missed out because they paid their business rates to their serviced office provider, not direct to the Local Authority – it looks like this has been put right – we are over the moon.”
He added: “We expect more details on Monday – but from what we gather it plugs the loophole which meant if you didn’t have an account with your local authority business rates department, you got nothing – it was very unfair and very stressful for all involved.”
Last week coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) lending hit £4.1bn, according to bank industry body UK Finance.
Over £1.33bn of loans were approved in the week to 28 April.
CBILS was set up to offer loans to firms with a turnover of up to £45m. Companies can access the money through more than 40 approved lenders and 80 per cent of the loan is guaranteed by the government.
After criticism of the scheme, chancellor Rishi Sunak last week announced a new bounce back loans programme for the UK’s smallest businesses.