Community Wealth Building Business Bulletin

London Borough of Newham sent this bulletin at 16-12-2020 03:28 PM GMT

Issue 6

16 December 2020

Government financial support for business

Local Restrictions Support Grant (LRSG) for businesses that closed 5 November-2 December

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on 31 October 2020 regarding a national lockdown from 5 November-2 December 2020, additional grant funding has been made available to those businesses that were unable to trade and forced to close during the additional restrictions. During this period a single grant to cover the four week period will be paid to each eligible business. The grant amounts will be fixed. Businesses with more than one qualifying property will receive more than one grant. The rate of payment for eligible businesses will be:

for properties with a rateable value of £15k or under, grants to be £1,334 per four weeks
for properties with a rateable value of over £15k and below £51k, grants to be £2,000 per four weeks
for properties with a rateable value of £51k or over, grants to be £3,000 per four weeks.

If you have been able to continue to trade during the lockdown period you will not be eligible to receive grant funding.

Apply here for Local Restrictions Support Grant

Note: Grant payments will not be paid for 28 days. Please do not reapply in this time as duplicate applications will cause delays.

Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG)

Application guidelines for the Additional Restrictions Grants (ARG), also referred to as Discretionary Grants, are currently in development. We want to use this funding to support businesses to contribute to the recovery and reorientation of Newham, so we are keen to develop criteria that align with our Towards a Better Newham Covid Recovery Strategy.

Therefore, we are currently devising the criteria and will provide the necessary information on our website when these are finalised and the application window is open. Please note that the funding is available for allocation up to March 2022, subject to national and local Covid alert levels.

Support grants

Please see the following government guidance on support grants below:

Coronavirus grant due to national restrictions (for closed businesses) To check your eligibility and for more information, click here.
Check if you're eligible for the coronavirus Local Restrictions Support Grant (for open businesses) To check your eligibility and for more information, click here.
Coronavirus Additional Restrictions Grant To check your eligibility and for more information, click here.
Check if your nightclub, dance hall or adult entertainment business is eligible for a coronavirus grant due to national restrictions, click here.

Government spending review

On 25 November the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the spending review. The government will provide billions of pounds in the fight against coronavirus, and invest in the UK’s recovery. To view the Chancellor’s speech, click here and for further details on the spending review click here.

The government has announced further economic support and updated some of the existing schemes as below:

Statutory Sick Pay paid to employees: The scheme has been updated so that employers can ask for a ‘shielding note’ or a letter from their employee's doctor or health authority advising them to shield because they’re at high risk of severe illness from coronavirus.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, also known as the Furlough Scheme, has been extended to 31 March 2021. To claim for wages through the scheme see gov.uk
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme Grant Extension: The extension will last until April 2021. Grants will be paid in two lump sum installments, each covering a three month period from November 2020-January 2021 and February-April 2021. The grants are taxable income and also subject to National Insurance contributions. Find out if you are eligible and how much you can get on gov.uk
Repay Eat Out to Help Out Scheme payments to avoid a penalty. Find out how to pay back all or some of the payments your business claimed if you have over claimed when taking part in the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme.
Tax cuts and deferrals: the temporary 15% VAT cut for the tourism and hospitality sectors will be extended to the end of March 2021. In addition, those due in January 2021, will now not need to be paid until January 2022.

Giving businesses flexibility to pay back loans

Businesses who took out a Bounce Back Loan will be given the option to repay their loan over a period of up to ten years through a new Pay as You Grow flexible repayment system. Interest-only periods of up to six months and payment holidays will also be available to businesses.
Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme lenders will be given the ability to extend the length of loans from a maximum of six years to ten years if it will help businesses to repay the loan.
The application deadlines for the Coronavirus Bounce Back Loan, Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan, Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme and Coronavirus Future Fund have been extended until 31 January 2021.

On 16 September the government extended support to stop business evictions. Commercial tenants will be protected from the risk of eviction until the end of 2020 helping businesses to protect jobs. Find out more on the gov.uk website

Recovery advice and useful links for business

Recovery Advice for Business Scheme, supported by the government and hosted on the Enterprise Nation website, gives small firms access to free, one-to-one advice with an expert adviser to help them through the coronavirus pandemic and to prepare for long-term recovery. Thousands of expert professional and business services advisers are on hand to offer free advice until 31 December.

Find out more at gov.uk or get started today at enterprisenation.com/freesupport

You can find more information on recovery advice for business here.

British Business Bank

As part of the wider business support package, businesses can find finance options with the British Business Bank in six easy steps.

The British Business Bank is 100% government owned but independently managed. It brings expertise and government money to the smaller business finance markets. The British Business Bank doesn't lend or invest directly. Instead, it works with over 130 partners such as banks, leasing companies, venture capital funds and web-based platforms.

To apply for a loan, businesses will be asked to answer six questions and this will help to generate a list of finance options that could be suitable for that business to consider. For these questions click here

General funding support for business

Royal Docks Good Growth Fund

The Royal Docks Good Growth Fund is a new £13 million programme that will support a broad range of projects that can help to transform the Royal Docks. The fund will be used to support projects that are inclusive, innovative and which tackle some of the challenges facing the Royal Docks. It will also seek to support local economic activity, create new jobs and workplaces, and ensure these opportunities are accessible to the whole community.

Skills incentives for employers

As part of the Chancellor’s Plan for Jobs there are a range of skills programmes, some of which offer financial incentives that are available for employers who are considering hiring employees or offering work experience. To learn more about the variety of offers available and how to apply, please visit gov.uk

Kickstart Scheme

The government has introduced a new Kickstart Scheme in Great Britain, a £2 billion fund to create hundreds of thousands of high quality six month work placements aimed at those aged 16 to 24 who are on Universal Credit and are deemed to be at risk of long term unemployment.

Expressway takes the Community Wealth Building pledge

by Jacob Sandelson, Principal, General Projects

We at General Projects and Expressway are delighted to have become accredited by the Community Wealth Building Pledge.

As one of Newham’s largest skills and business ecosystems we take our responsibility to support local people, and foster skills and community extremely seriously. This is ever more important given the disproportionate impact that the COVID-19 crisis has had on Newham as a whole and many of our 162 member businesses, as well as on the prospects of many local young people starting out in the world of work.

The Expressway and Newham Community Wealth Building partnership actively seeks to support those who need it most and activities include the Expressway Incubator, which is a rolling six month programme for young local entrepreneurs to develop their own businesses from Expressway – for free – complemented by support and mentoring from other established business founders working within the building.

Similarly, our commitment to supporting local young people in starting their careers within Newham will see a partnership come forward with Oasis Silvertown in 2021, where GCSE students will be able to attend careers fairs and mentoring sessions with our member businesses; this will help demystify the world of work and educate them on potential career options in Newham.

To us, the accreditation of the CWB Pledge is recognition both of our member businesses and partners, including Newham College and Oasis Academy, along with the various initiatives we’re delivering at Expressway to further support and foster skills within the borough.

Queens Market & Hamara Ghar Capacity and Viability Study

Together the Council, the Green Street community, traders at Queens Market, retailers and local businesses are working together to establish what future uses might be for the Queens Market Strategic Site. In 2021 a capacity and viability study will be progressed alongside a series of engagement events to ensure local residents and businesses can actively contribute to the process. The Council is looking for local residents and businesses to put themselves forward to sit on a key stakeholder working group to advise the Council on the progression of the study. For more information please visit www.newhamco-create.co.uk or email green.street@newham.gov.uk

Our pledge

by Gerald Mason, Senior Vice President, Tate & Lyle Sugars

The last nine months have been the toughest time I’ve ever known for our business, as I am sure they have for all businesses, organisations and residents of Newham. So why did we still make it a priority to become Community Wealth Building Business Pledge-accredited?

Quite simply, because it’s the right thing to do and we will get as much back from it as we give.

We already have a strong community programme supporting good causes big and small and playing a role in championing the communities around our two Newham factories. We’ve been working hard to increase the opportunities for Newham residents to access the highly skilled and well paid jobs at these factories. The number of jobs at these factories has increased by 30% over the last ten years as we have insourced work back to Newham from other parts of the country; our recent accreditation as a Living Wage Foundation is another step in our journey.

We’ve been making sugar and syrup in Newham for over 140 years and, we hope, have always been a good neighbour and employer over that time. But what excites us about the community wealth building approach is the formalisation of a framework where we can engage more broadly – working to make Newham a safer, more prosperous and healthy place not just on our own but with a whole range of organisations. We have a lot to learn from each other.

The sights, sounds and inquisitive questions of hundreds of Newham primary school children visiting the factories each year is always a joy to colleagues who might otherwise be having a tough day.

Finally, and importantly, there is plenty in it for us too. Our colleagues love working on the community projects we get involved with. Fifteen of them have just finished working through this year’s Lyle’s Local Fund applications and got so much from it. Colleagues keep telling me how sad they are that this year they won’t get the chance to help out at the community Christmas lunch programme that Newham usually organises.

For more about the Community Wealth Building Pledge, click here.

Commercial properties

If you are looking for commercial properties to rent in Newham, click here for a list of providers.

Newham Business Directory

Newham’s Business Directory is an online database that provides information about products and services provided by local businesses based in Newham. The directory provides customers with greater choice over the products and services they access and can be used from any internet enabled device such as laptops, smartphones and tablets.