Issue details

To approve the Local Authority Discretionary Grant Fund Scheme for Fareham Borough Council.

On 01 May the government announced a further support package for businesses struggling due to the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown; this was followed up with more detailed guidance on 12 May.

The Scheme is aimed at small and micro businesses in the borough who are incurring property related costs and who have not been eligible for other government support packages such a the Small Business and Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants Fund.

Local authorities have been tasked with creating a local scheme which meets the government requirements. Local authorities are expected to exercise their local knowledge and discretion about the economic need in their area when designing the scheme. However, the government have specified the following 4 types of business which they would like to see given some priority under the scheme:

·       Small businesses in shared offices or other flexible workspaces

·       Regular market traders with fixed building costs

·       Bed and Breakfasts which pay council tax

·       Charity properties who received charitable business rate relief which would otherwise have been eligible for Small Business Rates Relief.

The Council has been in discussion with other local authorities in Hampshire to establish some consistency in the schemes across the region. A review of the types of business in the borough as also been carried out to identify those businesses within the Fareham area which have not been eligible under other grants and reliefs schemes.

The resulting Scheme proposed is attached as Appendix 1. Key features of the Scheme are:

(a)  The value of the grant awarded to eligible businesses will be calculated against a sliding scale based solely on their monthly property related overheads; the scale is capped at a maximum of £10,000 per business.

(b)  This is not a first come, first served Scheme in that grants will not be awarded until the window of opportunity to apply has closed. Where there is insufficient funding to make a payment to all eligible businesses, a set of priority criteria, as defined I the Scheme, will be used to determine who will receive the grants.