Businesses in Cornwall are set to receive further grant payments to aid their recovery from Covid restrictions.
Cornwall Council has been allocated a further £4,427,419 by the Government to fund the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) Scheme and will begin distributing it to businesses by the end of this week (April 30).
Cornwall Council has already paid out around £9.5 million to 2,639 businesses under the January 2021 lockdown Additional Restriction Grant (ARG) Scheme.
Demand for ARG outstripped available funds in January/February 2021 and the Council made the difficult decision to pay 50% of the total amount requested by each business, to make sure that those who applied and were eligible received some support.
At the time, the Council committed to paying those businesses more if further funds were made available, an approach that was consulted on with business representatives.
Now the extra funds, coupled with residual cash from previous funding, will be distributed to those businesses awarded 50% of their claim thus far.
Businesses will now receive a total of 90% of the maximum award or the amount they requested, whichever is the lower. For example, a business which could have received £10k and received £5k, will now receive a further £4k, thereby taking its total grant to £9k.
Cornwall Council has decided to pay this money now from its own funds, before the funding arrives, to make sure that businesses in need receive the money as soon as possible.
The £4.4 million budget only allows the Council to make top-up payments to businesses that received money earlier this year and so it is not possible to establish a new round of grants.
