New grant scheme to help hospitality sector in Northumberland

Aimed primarily at businesses in the hospitality, hotel, bed and breakfast and leisure sectors, the Local Restrictions Support Grant (Open) will provide up to £3,675 of support for eligible companies, depending on their rateable value.

Applications have opened today, and can be made retrospectively back to September 18 when restrictions were introduced in North East England which included stopping households from mixing and requiring hospitality venues to close between 10pm and 5am.

Businesses will be able to claim up to November 4 and all applications must be made by December 7.

Cllr Nick Oliver, cabinet member for corporate services at Northumberland County Council, said: “We are very pleased to have this second set of grants open for applications, and once we receive the required information from businesses will be processing them as quickly as we can.

“The hospitality and leisure sector has been particularly badly affected by restrictions on socialising, and we hope that these grants will go some way to supporting businesses through this extremely difficult time.

“We will soon be announcing a further scheme too – which we hope will help some of the businesses which supply the hospitality, accommodation and leisure sector, and also hospitality, accommodation and leisure businesses which operate from business premises which don’t have a rateable value.”

The Local Restrictions Support Grant (Open) grant is specifically aimed at the hospitality, accommodation and leisure sector businesses which have a rateable value.

It does not cover businesses associated with personal care, such as hairdressers or tattooists, general retail businesses and garden centres, and businesses that operate from home, although registered bed and breakfasts will be eligible under the further scheme to be announced soon.

For businesses which have been legally required to close during the national lockdown, from November 5, there is a further grant scheme which is open for applications - Local Restrictions Support Grant (Closed) Addendum.

To find out more about the grants, and to make an application go to www.northumberland.gov.uk/businesshub

Please visit the business hub web pages or https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus/business-support for details of all of the support available for businesses.

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