West Berkshire Council calling on businesses to apply for coronavirus support grants

“It’s now down to local businesses getting in touch"

WEST Berkshire Council is calling on businesses eligible for support grants to return their forms.

The request comes as the council had only awarded 58 per cent of its allocation to local businesses as of Tuesday.

The council has also announced that it will be deferring all business rates due in May.

Funding packages of between £10,000 and £25,000 are available to local businesses, as part of the Government bailout scheme during the coronavirus pandemic.

Businesses in the hospitality, leisure and retail sectors will be able to claim the funding.

They must occupy a physical premises used mainly by a business operating in these sectors, and have a rateable value of less that £51,000.

The council said is has issued grants to more than 93.9 per cent (1,480) of businesses who had returned their forms, equating to £17.1m in grant funding.

The council has received an allocation of £29.3m to distribute to local businesses, of which 1,949 have been identified as eligible.

Council leader Lynne Doherty (Con, Speen) said: “We are doing what we can to support local businesses.

“We are trying to actively contact those businesses. We have not heard back from everybody.

“We are sending two letters and emails to everybody, if we think they are eligible, to get in contact with us.

“It’s now down to local businesses getting in touch.”

West Berkshire Council economic development officer Gabrielle Mancini said that the local authority had been awarding £1m every day.

She said: “As soon as we get them in we will work on them.

“It’s just a case of returning the forms.”

The decision to defer rates in May follows the council suspending all payments due in April.

Executive member for finance Ross Mackinnon (Con, Bradfield) said: “When we announced in March that we intended to defer April’s business rates payments, we had very positive feedback from local companies.

“At a time when social distancing is affecting the ability of many businesses to continue operating as normal, having extra cash flow has been a lifeline.

“Given that this guidance has not yet been revised, we have decided to extend this deferral to include May, which we hope will provide reassurance at a difficult time.

“This is in addition to the national Government grants, which we have been distributing to almost 2,000 local businesses in recent weeks.

“We know that as we work towards economic recovery, further support will be needed.

“We are feeding into central Government through the Berkshire Covid-19 task force about the specific issues West Berkshire businesses are experiencing and will work with the Local Enterprise Partnership to provide additional help where we can.”

Speaking at a meeting on Thursday executive member for finance Ross MacKinnon said the council had processed 1,493 claim forms of the 1,591 it had received as of 4pm that day.

He said the council had paid out £19m of funding and the average grant was £12,300.

Find out more at https://info.westberks.gov.uk/coronavirus-business