National restrictions grant schemes open

Published: 12 November 2020

Two new grant schemes for businesses affected by the national restrictions have opened for applications

The new national restrictions have now come into force meaning thousands of Derby businesses have been closed until Wednesday 2^nd December. The Government has announced £1.1bn of funding for two grant schemes to support those affected and Derby City Council has now launched the application process for the separate schemes.

To help businesses determine which grant to apply for, we are asking businesses to answer these three questions:

Are you registered for business rates within Derby City?
Has your business got a rateable value?
Has your business been forced to close?

If the answer to all these questions is yes then you should apply for the Local Restrictions Support Grant, if not, but you have still been impacted by the new four-week lockdown, then apply for the Additional Restrictions Grant.

The Local Restrictions Support Grant is a mandatory grant for businesses that have a rateable value and that have been forced to close or stop their main business activity. For the four-week period of the national measures eligible businesses will receive one payment per property. The rate of payment for eligible businesses will be:

For properties with a rateable value of £15k or under, grants to be £1,334 per four weeks;
For properties with a rateable value of over £15k and below £51k, grants to be £2,000 per four weeks;
For properties with a rateable value of £51k or over, grants to be £3,000 per four weeks.

The Additional Restrictions Grant is a discretionary scheme for those businesses who have been severely impacted by the new national lockdown but do not have a rateable value or have not been forced to close. The payments available for eligible businesses will be:

For businesses that work from a shared workspace or do not own or rent their own business premises, grants to be £1,334 per four weeks;
For businesses that own or rent their own business premises, grants to be £2,000 per four weeks;
For businesses that own or rent their own business premises and are larger in size (based on headcount or total fixed cost base), grants to be £3,000 per four weeks.

As part of the application form, businesses will be required to explain the detrimental impact that the new national lockdown has had on their operations.

To apply, please visit our business financial support section.

If you have any queries about the application process, for the LRSG scheme contact the Business Rates team, titling the email ‘LRSG’ or for the ARG scheme contact the Economic Growth team titling the email ‘ARG’.

Councillor Nicola Roulstone, Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement said:

We are pleased this additional funding has been made available to support our local businesses, our teams have worked incredibly hard to turn this around quickly and are now live with this new application system.

We are confident that we will be able to process applications effectively and get the grants paid as quickly as possible to help those businesses in need due to the ongoing impact of COVID-19.