Exeter Discretionary Business Grant Scheme

Published: 5 June 2020

Exeter City Council has £1,457,000 to allocate to small and micro businesses who have not been eligible for any other grant, with the exception of the furloughed Job Retention Scheme and the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, and who were trading on 11 March 2020.

The grants are aimed at businesses who have high ongoing fixed property-related costs who can show that they have suffered a major fall in income due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Grants available are for £25,000, £10,000, £5,000, £2,500 and £1,000 with eligible businesses required to meet the same evidence based tests of need.  Information entered in to the online application form will be scored and this will determine the eligibility and level of grant awarded.  The following business types will be eligible and prioritised for funding support, in line with Government requirements:

• Small businesses in shared offices or other flexible workspaces.
• Regular market traders with fixed building costs, such as rent, who do not have their own business rates assessment;
• Bed and Breakfasts which pay Council Tax instead of business rates; and
• Charity properties in receipt of Charitable Business Rates Relief which would otherwise have been eligible for Small Business Rates Relief or Rural Rate Relief.

Those not eligible for funding under this scheme include:

• Small businesses with a turnover of more than £10.2 million, balance sheet of more than £5.1 million and more than 50 staff
• Micro businesses with a turnover of more than £632,000, balance sheet of more than £316,000 with more than 10 staff
• Businesses who were not trading on 11 March 2020
• Businesses currently in administration or insolvent
• Businesses whose property rent, mortgage payments and rateable value is above the threshold of £51,000.

Councillor Emma Morse, Portfolio Holder for Supporting People said: “It’s really important that we continue to support as many businesses as we possibly can with this new pocket of Government funding.  This includes the types of businesses indicated within the Government guidance. When applying please read all of the guidance carefully, and ensure that all information entered online is completed accurately to ensure that businesses entitled to funding are not delayed due to errors made during the application process. “

If a business believes it fits the criteria stated, they can apply for funding via  www.exeter.gov.uk/topupgrant (page due to go live Mon 8 June)

The Council is expecting there to be a large demand for funding.

Applications are open on the City Council’s website from Monday 8 June, with the first grants being paid from Monday 22 June. If there are funds still available, a second opening will be live from Monday 22 June and will be available to all types of businesses located in Exeter.  Business will still need to meet the mandatory criteria of:

• have fewer than 50 employees
• were trading on 11 March 2020
• are not eligible for previous government grants

The Council will be checking all claims against previously approved grants, data held on file and with HM Revenue and Customs records. Any business caught falsifying their records to gain grant money will face prosecution and any funding issued will be reclaimed.

Please ensure you have supporting documents at hand before you start the application, including bank statements for March, April and May 2019 and 2020 as a minimum.

Officers at the City Council will be working as quickly as possible to process the claims and cannot respond to each business with individual updates, so they ask businesses to please remain patient and they will get back to you as soon as they can.  Please email topup.grants@exeter.gov.uk for any urgent enquiries.