New Covid Fund for Liverpool City Region Businesses

£9.5 million is being made available to support small and micro businesses affected by Covid-19. Business owners can apply for a share of the money from today (Monday, 30 November).

The Hospitality, Leisure and Retail Grants scheme is part of Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s £40m emergency support fund.

Almost 9,000 businesses in Liverpool have already received financial support since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK in March.

The new grant has been allocated to support small retail businesses that were forced to close due to the second national lockdown as well as the supply chain supporting the hospitality and leisure sector.

Included in this sector is non-essential retail, the self-employed, sole traders, licensed market traders and limited companies based at home who predominantly supply the hospitality and leisure sectors.

The scheme will be open for applications from 10am, and will close at 5pm on Friday, 11 December.

Business must also satisfy the following criteria:

• be based in the Liverpool City Region (covering the local authority areas of Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral)

• have been trading since 11 March 2020

• have not been eligible or received a grant from a local authority from October 2020 onwards

• employ one or more people

• be able to demonstrate that its trading activities have been significantly and negatively impacted by COVID-19 restrictions

• be State Aid compliant and

• still be trading on or before 1 October 2020

The grant application process and full criteria can be found here

The aim is to pay the grant by BACS within 10 working days of an application being approved.