In April, the Government announced the Restart Grant that would be administered by Local Authorities in England. Many of our local Huntingdonshire businesses will have been closed due to the national lockdowns over the past year, and some require financial support to return to normal trading.

The District Council has already paid out £7,069,392 million of Restart Grants to 932 local businesses identified to be eligible from preexisting grant applications, therefore businesses did not have to submit an additional application. Now, we are ready to accept Restart Grants applications from those businesses that have not previously applied for grant support and fulfil the eligibility criteria.

The application form will open on Wednesday 12 May.

The grant, which has been developed to cover business rate-paying businesses, is a one-off payment that is accessible for organisations from the following 6 sectors:
• Non-essential retail
• Hospitality
• Leisure
• Accommodation
• Gym & sports
• Personal care

Further to this funding, Huntingdonshire District Council is also offering a discretionary grant to business ratepayers who would not be eligible for Restart Grant funding. The enhanced Additional Restriction Grant is available to eligible businesses that have experienced a significant loss of income directly related to, or as a result of, national lockdown restrictions.

Executive Leader of the Council, Cllr Ryan Fuller, said: “It is a priority for the council to support local businesses and help them to recover from the impact of the pandemic. This is why we streamlined our processes to ensure that we could process Restart Grant payments to eligible businesses quickly and without the need for another application. We are also aware that there are businesses who have not been able to access Government financial support, which is why we are now expanding Restart Grant applications to newer businesses and enhancing the Additional Restrictions Grants scheme on Wednesday 12 May, to enable more support to reach the businesses of Huntingdonshire.”

The application forms for both the Restart Grants and the enhanced ARG will be accessible from Wednesday 12 May from http://www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk/business/covid-business-grants/ and applications should be submitted by 31 May 2021.

The enhanced ARG funding pot is finite and is distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. If the fund is fully allocated before 31 May, we will update the website and will stop accepting applications.

For more information on how Huntingdonshire District Council is supporting local businesses, see:

http://www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk/business/covid-business-grants/

https://huntingdonshire.gov.uk/council-democracy/reopening-our-towns/digital-toolkit