Lockdown Support Grant for local businesses goes live

Councils are responsible for the local delivery of the government scheme, which involves processing applications and making payments to businesses and FoDDC’s online application form will go live on the council’s website on Monday morning from 0900hrs.

Each application needs to be carefully assessed and verified to check if applicants are eligible before any payments can be made. Businesses should apply if:

• They were operating as a business that was open as usual and providing an in-person service to customers from the business premises but were required to close by law for the national lockdown period (for the majority of businesses, this will have been from 5 November).
• If they are liable to pay Business Rates (even if they have not paid their rates this financial year due to a relief or exemption).
• Businesses that have closed the main part of their operations but adapted their business model to provide a reduced service (e.g. takeaway or click and collect) should apply for this grant, if they are liable for business rates.
• Businesses that primarily provided takeaway or click and collect services (before government restrictions) are not eligible.

The payment amount will depend on the rateable value of the property set out in the table below. The payment will cover the full four weeks from 5 November to 2 December 2020. Payments will be made as follows:

Cllr Richard Leppington, cabinet member for Finance said: “We are in unprecedented times with a second national lockdown and this clearly has a massive impact on local businesses, so this Support Grant scheme is a vital lifeline.

“We have tried to ensure the online application form is as straightforward and jargon-free as possible and we will process applications as speedily as possible, however demand is sure to be high and this may cause delays.

“At the moment, given we cannot accurately predict demand, there may be a delay and we do not want to make promises we cannot keep. Of course, our teams will be working flat-out to process applications and conduct all necessary checks and get payments made to local businesses.

“We will have a clearer idea of how fast we are able to process payments after a few days of operating the scheme.”