1,400 Hartlepool businesses given grants totalling more than £15million to help them through crisis

Hartlepool Borough Council previously wrote to around 1,500 businesses eligible to receive the grant funding to support them in light of the Covid-19 outbreak, urging them to apply for it.

This came after the Government announced in March business rates support and grant funding intended to help the most-affected firms manage their cash flow through this period.

This included two grant schemes, a Small Business Grants Fund scheme and a Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Grants Fund.

New figures from the Government state as of May 3 a total of 1,390 payments of such grants have been made to businesses in Hartlepool, totalling £15,655,000.

The statistics stated the local authority had identified 1,561 businesses who ‘may be in scope’ to receive a grant, meaning there are just over 150 who have not yet received the support.

The update comes after at the start of April council chiefs noted at that point £7.35million had been paid out to support 685 local businesses under the government funded grant schemes.

This includes the Small Business Grants Fund, for businesses with a rateable value of up to £15,000, who occupied their business premises on 11th March 2020, and were eligible for a grant of £10,000.

The second scheme supports retail, hospitality and leisure businesses.

Businesses occupying business premises with a rateable value of up to and including £15,000 on 11 March 2020 were eligible for a grant of £10,000.

Those businesses occupying business premises with a rateable value of over £15,000 and less than £51,000 on 11 March 2020 were eligible for a grant of £25,000.

Leader of Hartlepool Borough Council Coun Shane Moore previously explained how the grants would help businesses in need in the area.

Speaking at the start of last month, he said: “These grants are intended to help businesses meet costs until other Government support is available.

“These grants can be used to meet fixed costs, such as property rent and property insurance, to pay supplier invoices, or pay wages if your business is experiencing cash flow problems.

“These grants can also be used to pay wages if you have agreed with your employees that they will be furloughed and you are waiting to claim this money back from the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.”

Any eligible business who have not yet claimed the grants just need to complete an application form, which can be found at www.hartlepool.gov.uk/smallbusinessgrant.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.