£6mil of fresh cash to help struggling Stoke-on-Trent businesses

A fresh chunk of cash has been made available to thousands of businesses across Stoke-on-Trent to help them bounce back from the crippling effects of the pandemic.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has said it will be distributing a further £5.6m in new national Covid-19 Additional Relief Fund money to businesses who meet set criteria. The money will be applied as relief to business rates for the current financial year.

The new funding will mainly be for businesses which previously have not benefitted from any of the government or local authority initiated grants and relief throughout the pandemic. The authority is writing directly to 1,841 businesses who may be eligible for the funding.

£100 million in total

In total the City Council states that businesses across Stoke-on-Trent have benefited from a total of £100m since the pandemic started.

In total, the authority has paid out mandatory grants in the form of:

• £38,400,000 in small business grants to 3,840 businesses

• £14,055,000 in grants to 797 businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors

• £12,056,864 in restart grants to 1,058 businesses

• £12,995,568 in local restrictions support grants to 1,826 businesses

• £8,352,000 in closed business lockdown payments to 1,798 businesses

• £962,730 in Omicron hospitality and leisure grants to 291 businesses

• £124,000 in Christmas support payments to 124 businesses.

Council leader Abi Brown said: “We know how important the funding we have given out to businesses has been over the past two years. Without it, many businesses in our city would have gone under. We were not prepared to let that happen and moved heaven and earth to ensure we distributed funding as soon as possible to eligible businesses. The government has made a wide range of national grant schemes available during the pandemic, we made sense of these schemes for our local businesses, supporting them where needed in helping them to apply for and accessing the funding, and getting it to them quickly. It’s been a huge logistical operation and it is testament to our fantastic businesses right across the city that they have kept going through the toughest challenges we have faced in generations and are now coming out the other side, surviving, recovering and prospering again.

During the height of the pandemic, Abbey Hulton F.C., like sports clubs across the country, closed their ground. It meant that they couldn’t fulfil their fixtures and welcome fans in to watch, but also that their hospitality facilities had to close, a source of extra income for the club.

Club committee member Simon Laidler said: “We were at a critical point and would have struggled to keep going without the funding, not just for the first team to play at a non-league level, but the kids’ soccer that we run from the club and all of the community activities. The funding has genuinely massively helped.”

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• Stoke-on-Trent