Event firms in England eligible for latest grant funding
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Local authorities remain in power over how much of the £1.1bn funding is administered and to which businesses, but the guidance encourages them “to develop discretionary grant schemes to help those businesses which - while not legally forced to close - are nonetheless severely impacted by the restrictions put in place to control the spread of COVID-19. This could include - for example - businesses which supply the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors, or businesses in the events sector.”
The explicit mention of the events sector is a big win for campaigners, who have argued for months that the industry should have been included among the worst-hit sectors eligible for funding.
The guidance also says that when deciding how much funding a business can receive, local authorities “may want to take into account the level of fixed costs faced by the business in question, the number of employees, whether they are unable to trade online and the consequent scale of coronavirus losses.”
Reflecting on the news, PLASA says in a statement: “The UK government recently announced new business support measures, including £1.1bn of funding for local authorities in England to allocate to businesses in their constituency affected by the COVID crisis - and this time, the events sector has been explicitly included. After months of campaigning for the events supply chain to be included under the umbrella of 'retail, leisure and hospitality' for government grants, we are pleased to see that the events sector is specified in a government guidance document.”
The Additional Restrictions Grant comes on top of the extension of the Job Retention Scheme, which will remain open until 31 March 2021, and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, through which the self-employed can claim two further grants, each available for 3 month periods covering November 2020 to January 2021 and February 2021 to April 2021.
In addition, business premises forced to close in England are to receive grants worth up to £3,000 per month under the Local Restrictions Support Grant. They will be eligible for the following:
- For properties with a rateable value of £15k or under, grants to be £1,334 per month, or £667 per two weeks;
- For properties with a rateable value of between £15k-£51k grants to be £2,000 per month, or £1,000 per two weeks;
- For properties with a rateable value of £51k or over grants to be £3,000 per month, or £1,500 per two weeks.
For the latest information and guidance updates, visit: www.gov.uk/coronavirus
