Restart Grants to support Wiltshire businesses set to open for new applications

Wiltshire Council has paid out more than £11m in the recently announced Restart Grants to 1,520 businesses, and is now opening the window for new Restart Grant applications to support businesses as they reopen following the easing of lockdown. In total, the council has paid more than £156m so far to Wiltshire businesses during the pandemic.

From Tuesday 27 April, new applications in sectors such as non-essential retail businesses, and hospitality businesses such as personal care, pubs, leisure and hotels, can apply for these grants to help them recover from the COVID-19 pandemic - if they haven't already received a grant.

To help businesses establish whether they are eligible and how much they may be awarded, the council has produced a downloadable factsheet that lists business sectors and their eligibility. People can download the factsheet at Coronavirus business support grants.

The grants are worth up to £6,000 for non-essential retail, and up to £18,000 for hospitality businesses, and replace the previous Local Restrictions Support Grants (LRSG).

Sam Fox, Corporate Director for Place and Environment, said: "We know how difficult the past year has been for Wiltshire businesses, and that's why we're doing all we can to support them.

"Our teams have been working incredibly hard to access and distribute the Restart Grant funding as soon as they can, and to ensure that the much-needed money reaches Wiltshire businesses.

"To process payments as quickly as possible, we contacted all businesses that had already received a Local Restrictions Support Grant (LRSG) for the extra information we needed to process the Restart Grants, and we have now paid £11.618m in Restart Grants to 1,520 Wiltshire businesses that had previously received a LRSG.

"In total throughout the pandemic, we have also paid £37.5m in LRSG payments, £12.02m in Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) payments, and £95m in other grants - making £156m in total paid out in business grants so far.

"We are now processing and paying a second batch of LRSG recipients, and then we will move on to the new applications, which is why we're opening the Restart Grants up for new applications on Tuesday.

"Restart Grants are available for rate paying businesses in the non-essential retail, hospitality, accommodation, leisure, personal care and gym sectors, and I would urge any of these types of Wiltshire businesses that have not received a LRSG payment to apply for a Restart Grant as soon as possible.

"As we have done for the past year, we will be paying grants to Wiltshire businesses for some time to come as we continue to support them towards what we hope is a prosperous future."

For more information on the grants, to apply and to sign up for the business newsletter, businesses should go to Coronavirus business support grants; or to find out more about eligibility, they can visit GOV.UK: check if you're eligible for a coronavirus restart grant.