Councillor Tudor Evans, Leader of Plymouth City Council, and portfolio holder for Economic Development, shares an update on the support that the Council has delivered to businesses this week, and the focus for the coming week.
Business Grants
This week we’ve worked to pay all of our accepted business grant applications. We’ve now paid £29.2 million directly into the bank accounts of Plymouth businesses. That’s 2,440 business grants successfully processed and paid.
Our focus now is reaching out to the nearly 1,000 businesses who haven’t yet applied for their business grants and making sure that they know that the grants are available for them.
Business grants in numbers:
- 3,240 applications received
- 2,749 applications approved
- 2,440 business grants paid
- Over 2,000 calls taken on our business grant helpline
- £29.2 million paid directly to businesses
Lobbying for business support
Our lobbying work has continued this week. Working with the LGA and our partners the Chamber of Commerce and FSB we’re lobbying to plug the gaps for support for small businesses.
This continues to focus on:
- Support for the 400 Plymouth businesses in managed workspaces not currently eligible for the business grant scheme
- Asking for support for businesses that only started trading recently, who do not have a 2018/19 tax return to satisfy HMRC rules
- Those who are self-employed, whose first year of trading did not make enough profit in their 2018/19 tax return
- The self-employed people who are in franchise agreements and who get no relief or payment holiday from their franchisor
- The directors of companies that draw a salary through a combination of PAYE and dividends and therefore are not eligible for the maximum £2,500 per month under the job retention scheme.
- Support for the fishing industry to keep fishing ports open and keep fishers fishing
Funding support
We’re continuing to share and highlight the various funding support available for businesses. Including working with Plymouth Culture to make businesses aware of the 1-2-1 sessions available for the arts and culture sector to apply for Arts Council England funding.
We’ve also been sharing details of grants, funding opportunities and innovation funds regularly across our Invest Plymouth channels to make it as easy as possible for businesses to identify and apply for business support funding.
Call 4 Fish
Call 4 Fish has now reached over 400,000 people through social media and is now in an additional 14 ports across the UK having started in Plymouth. The initiative now has a network of more than 50 merchants and fishmongers with a nationwide courier service, and more coming on board daily.
Since launching Call 4 Fish the Plymouth Fish Market has been able to stay open, all fish landed have been sold and it has remained viable for boats to go to sea and merchants have seen a sharp increase in trade when a few weeks ago their prospects looked bleak.
Sound Seafood are also now supporting Shekinah Mission with free fish donations.
Celebrity chef Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall this week shared a picture of his fresh fish delivery from Call 4 Fish
Looking ahead to next week
- We’ll be continuing to contact and reach out to the businesses who haven’t yet applied for their Covid-19 business grants
- We’ll be continuing our lobbying efforts to generate more support for small businesses
- We’ll be supporting the retail industry with a new initiative in conjunction with the City Centre Business Improvement District