Further £562K in Covid-19 funding for firms

The latest grant scheme will open on Monday, November 16 giving commercial premises a further opportunity to apply for discretionary grants of up to 100% of eligible costs of between £500 and £3,000 to support their Covid-19 business recovery.

Centred on helping businesses to adapt their premises to help provide a safe environment for their customers and staff, from creating outdoor seating or adding coverings and awnings to modifying buildings internally to aid social distancing, the grant aid follows a previous scheme which also saw £562K distributed to more than 200 local companies.

Funding of £429K has been awarded by the Department for Communities’ (DfC) Covid-19 Recovery Revitalisation Programme for town centres and by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) for smaller settlements, with a further £133K invested by Mid Ulster District Council, which is once again coordinating the grant scheme.

Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín announced the second tranche of funding on October 28 which included £429K for Mid Ulster from DfC and DEARA and follows the £429K already invested in the area in tranche one of the scheme in July, bringing the overall total for the council area to £958K.

Chair of the Council, Councillor Cathal Mallaghan, welcomed the second tranche of funding: “Coronavirus is not waning and we cannot allow our efforts to support local businesses to wane either. Financial support has never been more critical and this second tranche of funding will help even more premises to flex how they operate to continue to trade safely and with the confidence of their customers. The timing is also critical given we are about to emerge from a 4-week restriction period and move into one of the most important trading periods of the year, particularly for retail and hospitality.”

To help businesses prepare, guidance notes for the scheme are now available online at www.midulstercouncil.org/covidbusinessgrant and the application form will be available from Monday, November 16 at 9am. Businesses which obtained grants under the scheme in the first tranche are not eligible to re-apply in tranche 2. For information, contact the Council’s economic development team on 03000 132 132, [email protected] or visit www.midulstercouncil.org/covidbusinessgrant.

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