Northumberland County Council has launched the second phase of its successful Business Resilience Grant (BRG) scheme. 

 

The BRG 2 grant scheme is aimed at companies that are liable for business rates, but have not already received Local Restrictions Support Grants, the Restart Grant or Additional Restrictions Grants.  To enable more business types to be supported the Council also extended the Business Resilience Grant so that it can support some mobile and home-based businesses.   

 

Jan Willis, Executive Director of Finance at Northumberland County Council said: “The Business Resilience Grant has been extremely successful in supporting many enterprises which were not eligible for the main Local Restrictions Support Grants.  

 

“We have now launched a second phase of the scheme – providing further support for these businesses as restrictions begin to ease.” 

 

To apply you must be based in Northumberland, have been trading on 1 April 2021, have not already received support through Local Restriction Support Grants, the Restart Grants or Additional Restriction Grants and, for those with premises, be able to demonstrate a minimum of £200 a month of ongoing commercial property costs.   

 

Eligible home-based and mobile businesses will be those which operate in the hospitality, accommodation and leisure industries, which supply these industries directly, and those that provide face-to-face services. They must be able to demonstrate that they continue to have on-going fixed costs of at least £100 per month associated with running their business, and that they have not been able to adapt to trade successfully online.  The business must also provide the majority of the applicant's income. 

 

Businesses that have successfully applied for the first round of BRG will be able to apply for BRG2. 

 

All applicants must be able to demonstrate that their business has been severely impacted by Covid-19 restrictions, through a significant reduction in footfall, trading restrictions or supply chain disruption. 

 

The BRG version 2 grant will be a one-off payment of either £1,000 and £2,500 for home-based businesses, subject to the level of their fixed running costs, and £2,500, £5,000 or £10,000 for those with business premises, according to their rateable value.