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Peterborough and Cambridgeshire are out–performing the national average for paying out grants to small businesses affected by Covid-19.
Peterborough City Council is leading the way, having now paid out grants to more than 93 per cent of those eligible. While the wider Peterborough and Cambridgeshire area has paid out 84.4 per cent. The national average is 77.6 per cent.
Peterborough City Council continues to administer the small business grants, which provide a one-off grant of £10,000 to eligible businesses to help meet their ongoing business costs, and a £25,000 grant for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses.
In addition, it is implementing a business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses and nurseries for the 2020/21 tax year.
Councillor David Seaton, cabinet member for finance at Peterborough City Council, said: “I am pleased to say that so far we have paid out in the region of £27million to around 2,300 businesses - 93.26 per cent of the payments we need to make - making us level best in the country for getting these grants out to local businesses, and better than anywhere else in Cambridgeshire.
“We know how valuable these grants are to support businesses in the city to allow them to support their employees, so we have pulled out all the stops to be able to award them swiftly.”
Further payments will continue to be made over the coming days. Businesses which qualify for the grants do not need to do anything, the council will pay the money directly into their accounts.
The city council has also awarded 100 per cent business rate relief for 1,255 retail/hospitality/leisure businesses, totalling £36,255,343.42. It also has 31 nurseries eligible for relief of £337,656.