More than £13.6 million has been paid out in grants to support small firms in Gravesham, and there's more to come.

Businesses and charities in Gravesham which missed out on government support grants to help them through the coronavirus crisis can now apply for assistance from a new discretionary grant fund.

The fund is being administered by Gravesham council to help those who were not eligible for the government’s Small Business Grant Fund or the Retail, Leisure and Hospitality Fund.

It is targeted at businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs, including small businesses in shared offices or other flexible workspaces such as sub-divided rural/industrial units; regular market traders with fixed building costs, such as rent, who do not have their own business rates assessment; bed and breakfasts which pay Council Tax instead of business rates; charity property in receipt of charitable business rates relief which would otherwise have been eligible for Small Business Rates Relief or Rural Rate Relief; businesses which missed out on the original grant scheme through a legitimate issue with their VOA (Valuation Office Agency) status on March 11; businesses which form part of the supply chain for the leisure, retail and hospitality sector; and the creative sector businesses.

It is anticipated that fixed grants of between £2,000 and £10,000 will be paid to successful applicants, depending on their circumstances.

Encouraging local businesses to apply, Cllr John Burden, leader of Gravesham council said: “Our small businesses are the lifeblood of Gravesham’s economy and we have been doing all we can to help them survive the coronavirus shutdown.

“To date we have reached 99% of local firms we believe were eligible for the original Government Business Support grants, paying £13.6 million to more than 1,100 organisations.

“That puts us in the top five local authorities in the country for proportion of businesses reached with those funds, but we are very aware that there are small businesses desperately in need of support who slipped through the cracks of those schemes.

“While the amount allocated to us to distribute through this new scheme is finite, we are just as keen to identify and help as many of those businesses as we can with the funds that have been made available to us.”

For more details and to apply, visit www.gravesham.gov.uk/business

Applications must be received by close of business on Friday, June 19.

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