The current Covid-19 pandemic has affected us all in various ways and Dumfries and Galloway Council are doing all we can to mitigate the effects on our residents and businesses.
Members heard a verbal update on the progress of Dumfries and Galloway’s economic response at the Ad-Hoc Covid-19 sub-committee on 22 May.
Support for local business has been a key factor in our Council’s response, both to help business owners to weather the Covid storm and to pave the way for economic recovery once we have come through the pandemic.
To date the Council has paid out over £33.8M in grants to local businesses through a variety of Scottish Government funds. These include the delivery of Business Support Fund grants, , support for the self-employed and a variety of business support measures to support industries at various levels.
We have supported over 3,000 businesses through delivery of the Scottish Government’s Business Support. At around 70 applications per day we have managed to pay out around 77% of applications within 10 days. Phase 2 of this scheme, which allows applications on multiple properties opened on 5 May and now also includes businesses which receive charitable relief.
Delivery of the Self-Employed Hardship Fund launched on April 30. To date we have received 168 applications and have so far paid out £196k to approved applications.
The Council recognise that we are all in this together and have formed a partnership approach through South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE) and Scottish Borders Council. Focus has been on coordinating our initial response to supporting businesses and sharing intelligence on impact, with information shared on grant funding and systems.
Leader of Dumfries and Galloway Council Elaine Murray said: “We recognised early on in the current pandemic that if are to emerge from the situation with a healthy economy we needed to do as much as we possibly could to support our businesses through it. We set up our Economic Recovery Team as a priority and they have been working extremely hard to ensure that we can do all we can to mitigate the financial effects on our local companies.”
Depute, Rob Davidson, said: “We appreciated that support was needed urgently, and we quickly set up a business help line and distributed the Government funding to support local businesses. Unfortunately, we are not through this yet and continue to work to find further money to address funding gaps. I would encourage businesses who have not already been in receipt of funding to get in touch so that we can help you get any money you may be entitled to. Please keep checking our website for updates as there are frequent changes to the Government schemes in response to feedback.”
For more information go to: https://supportdg.dumgal.gov.uk/article/20783/Support-for-local-businesses
