The Discretionary Business Support Grant for small and microbusinesses is intended to aide those businesses within the London Borough of Hounslow who have so far not qualified to receive funding from central government during the coronavirus pandemic.
In order to qualify to receive the grant businesses must meet a specific set of criteria, including, but not limited to;
- The company must be trading as a Partnership or Limited Company and registered at Companies House.
- The business must have ongoing costs for trading premises in the borough.
- It must have been trading on 11 March 2020
- It must be able to demonstrate it suffered a significant fall in income due to coronavirus crisis – measured as a 50 per cent drop from the level of income in February 2020 compared with either April or May 2020.
- It must have at least one employee.
- It must have its principal trading address in London Borough of Hounslow
There are three levels of grant funding available to businesses: £25,000; £10,000 and £5,000. Eligibility for each funding level have conditions that need to be met in addition to those listed above.
Full details of the scheme and the criteria to be met are provided in the Discretionary Business Support Grant Policy May 2020. (https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/…/discretionary_business_suppor…)
The criteria are designed to target the funding at businesses who have suffered the greatest loss of income as a result of Covid-19, have trading premises in the borough, provide employment and allow the funding to reach successful applicants quickly.
Applications for the grant will be considered on a first come first served basis as the amount of funding provided by central government is considered unlikely to be sufficient to meet the needs of all qualifying businesses in the borough.
As a result, businesses who consider they may qualify and wish to apply for the funding, if they haven’t already done so, should sign up to the Council’s email newsletter ‘Covid-19 Business Recovery’ before Monday 8 June so that they can be notified via email as soon as the application process has gone live during week commencing 8 June, with a link to the application form. (https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/business-support-grant)
I hope this information will be of use to you. If you need further assistance on this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact Seema Malhotra at malhotras@parliament.uk.