A full range of business support measures have been made available to UK businesses and employees.
Follow the links to see the latest updates from Government, find financial support for your business and click here if you are self employed.
The Government has set up a business support helpline on 0300 456 3565. This is available Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm. Visit the Malvern Hills website to sign up for the latest updates on business support and our regular email newsletter.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson set out further changes to lockdown measures in England From Saturday 4th July, pubs, restaurants and hairdressers will be able to reopen, providing they adhere to COVID Secure guidelines. Find out more
In the announcement, it was outlined that from 4 July in England:
- The two metre social distancing rule will be relaxed to one metre plus. Where it is possible to remain two metres you should continue to do so, but where this is not possible it should be a ‘one metre plus’ policy. New guidance has be published to support businesses – including changing office layouts, protective screens, closing non-essential communal areas etc.
- Restaurants and pubs can open. Indoor hospitality is limited to table services and contact details will need to be collected from customers.
- People will be free to stay in self-contained accommodation including hotels, B&Bs and campsites – so long as shared facilities can be kept clean.
- Tourist attractions will be able to reopen if they can do so safely, outside gyms and playgrounds can also open.
- Places of worship will be able to reopen, weddings can take place with up to 30 guests.
- Close proximity venues such as nightclubs, soft play, indoor gyms, swimming pools and spas will remain closed. Taskforces will be established to help them become COVID secure.
- Indoor facilities for sports will remain closed, and close contact sports should only happen with people from the same household.
- Two households of any size will be able to meet in any setting (inside or outside), they do not have to be the same household each time. They are not recommending multiple households meet indoors.
- Outside, the guidance remains that people from several households of up to six, or two households can meet regardless of size.
Guidance has been produced for restaurants, hairdressers and pubs here
Hotel and Guest accommodation guidance is available here
To help employers reopen their businesses safely, the government has launched a new tool to identify the most relevant guidance for your business. The guidance highlighted will help businesses carry out a risk assessment and make sensible adjustments to the site and workforce. Employees can also use this guidance to check what their workplace needs to do to keep people safe. This guidance is only for businesses that are allowed to reopen in England.
See the guidance
A series of business risk assessment checklists have been produced by Worcestershire insurance firm Sutcliffe Insurance.
The checklists help businesses identify the steps they need to take to safely return back to operation with COVID-19 safety measures. All the checklists have been produced using the latest Government risk. Sutcliffe Insurance have produced a variety of these checklists aimed at differing business sectors, these checklists can be accessed here on the Worcestershire LEP website.
Businesses across Malvern Hills now have the opportunity to pledge their support to community projects in a new and easy way.
The People Make Places fund has recently been launched by Malvern Hills o support the community through projects and services provided by local community groups and Voluntary Community Sector organisations. The first funding round is dedicated to projects supporting COVID-19 recovery.
Delivered via civil crowdfunding platform, Spacehive, this is an opportunity for businesses across the district/county to offer support to community-led project ideas alongside the council and its partners.
The fund supports up to 50% of the overall target with the remaining 50% being funded by businesses, the community and other funders. Anyone can help a project towards its target, with pledges starting at £2, the platform enables local people to get behind campaigns they want to make happen in their area.
Projects currently live on Spacehive include foodbanks, Good Neighbour Schemes, tackling social isolation, and supporting people experiencing or have experienced domestic abuse. Please click through the links to see each project:
Age UK Malvern – Reaching Out Across the Malvern Hills
Community Action Malvern Needs you
DAWN Project
Upton Love Your Neighbour
Tenbury Foodbank
Suckley Good Neighbour Scheme Needs You
There are more projects being uploaded in the next few weeks, please email: communityservices@malvernhills.gov.uk to keep updated.
The next funding round will begin in September, where there will be a focus on supporting community transport providers and projects.
Businesses and other organisations are encouraged to pledge on an ad-hoc basis, but those looking to make a pledge contribution to multiple projects can be given their own supporter profile on this site to showcase their support. The fund is part of a wider programme of crowdfunding activity across Worcestershire, in conjunction with Worcestershire County Council.
To date Spacehive has helped over 1000 projects to raise over £16m. Currently, they are working with 35 authorities and have over £4mil of additional funding available for projects from their partner funder network. For more information about Spacehive, please visit: https://www.spacehive.com/
Work on Worcestershire County Council’s major infrastructure schemes is now back underway, following the suspension of works earlier this year due to the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic.
Work on a majority of the schemes was suspended in late March, but is now returning in a phased manner, following the Highway Sector’s Site Operating Procedures which provide guidance on travel to work, welfare facilities, hygiene practices and other site management practices designed to control the spread of the virus.
Projects where activity has resumed include Worcester’s Southern Link Road, Pinvin Crossroads near Pershore and Churchfields in Kidderminster.
Details of all the County Council Major Projects can be found at www.worcestershire.gov.uk/majorprojects
Worcestershire’s Technology Accelerator, BetaDen are encouraging registrations for the next entry in their Tech Tuesday series.
On Tuesday 7 July, BetaDen will be hosting their next Tech Tuesday event, this time covering Drone Technology. Featuring special guest speakers Gareth Whatmore and Nigel Pugh who are highly experienced technologists and drone pilots who will cover what drones do today and what might drones do tomorrow, latest developments in pioneering Medical Drone Delivery and how Tech can be used today to learn more about public acceptance issues surrounding drone use today.
This 60 minute webinar, is one not to be missed by those with an interest in drones or technology. By joining the virtual event, attendees will explore how Drones and DroneTech are opening up opportunity in our economy within the post COVID19 world.
For more information and to register a place on the free virtual event, visit the BetaDen website here.
COVID-19 and social distancing is not going to put a damper on Malvern’s annual alfresco celebration of hands-on science experiments that usually takes place in Priory Park, Great Malvern.
Instead, Innovate Malvern CIC has announced that it has organised a free virtual event to take place 10am to 4:30pm on Saturday 27 June 2020 with scientists presenting live from around the country alongside short pre-recorded videos and science discussions.
Aimed at primary and early secondary school students, and their families, people can register for a limited number of tickets on Zoom, enabling them to pose questions to the guest speakers about the subjects being presented. And others will be able to watch on the Facebook Live stream throughout the day.
Dr Adrian Burden, Managing Director of the social enterprise behind the event and host for the day, explains “We didn’t want to simply cancel this year’s event, particularly as schools have been so disrupted over the last few months. So, we’re grateful that so many science communicators have agreed to jump on board with the new format and share their insights and enthusiasm for the subject from their own homes and gardens.”
The science topics covered will be wide ranging; from Rockets to Raspberry Pis, Microbes to Möbius strips, Physics to Fossils, Bubbles to Batteries, Surfactants to Scurvy, Rocks to Radio, and more. There will also be demonstrations of experiments and projects that people can perform for themselves. And for those living in the Malvern area there will be a self-guided quiz around the town organised by The IET with prizes to be won.
This year, Malvern Science in the Park is kindly supported by the Institute of Physics, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, The IET, Worcester City Council, Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership, and Malvern Hills District Council.
Visit the Innovate Malvern website here for the full programme and details about how to watch on Zoom and Facebook.
Tune into the Department for International Trade’s podcast series with brand new episodes focused around selling online. Back in February 2020 the DIT hosted its annual selling online conference – Go Global. It was a jam-packed day where we heard from Candy Kittens, BrewDog and Ohh Deer about their export stories and how they use e-commerce to grow their sales overseas. These stories were too good to just hear once so during the day we recorded podcasts with many of the speakers, including Jamie Laing and Ed Williams from Candy Kittens.
See the podcasts
Worcestershire County Council have approved a plan that will put £3.5million into kickstarting the local economy. The plan supports local businesses with match funded grants of between £25,000 and £100,000 available over the next 2 years.
The grants will help businesses recover by expanding production, employing graduates, introducing new technology and to support diversification and build future resilience in light of the current economic circumstances. For more details click here.
Are you looking at how to restart, reshape or continue to grow your business? Are you an established business ideally trading for over 5 years with 5 plus employees, based in Worcestershire and trading B2B?
Elevate can help you emerge from the impact of Covid-19 not just stable but prepared for a positive future. With the benefit of expert advice and support your business may not just restart but be on a path to future growth. The next webinar is scheduled for Wednesday 22nd July 2020 9.30 – 11.00. Contact Wendy Garrad on 01905 844595 or at wgarrad@worcestershire.gov.uk to sign up or find out more.
Enterprise Nation are offering a FREE 3 month membership to their business support community! Access their online support hub, free webinars, specialist advice and more. Click here for more details.
MHDC are now inviting applications from small and medium businesses for the Government-funded Discretionary Grant Scheme. The grants are intended to assist small and medium businesses whose income has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Grant applications close 5pm 26th June. More details and online application here
Government has updated the information for running your business through the Coronavirus pandemic. Watch videos and register for the free webinars to learn more about the support available to help you deal with the economic impacts of Coronavirus.
Register for webinars
In the new COVID-world there are some inspiring stories of organisations who have successfully adapted their business models to the current challenges for Apprenticeships under COVID-19.
‘Keeping learners learning’ has been the mantra of the entire team at Worcestershire Group Training Association (WGTA) where they have had to adapt the delivery of their programmes for their apprenticeship learners.
More employers are being encouraged to support this growing demand for apprenticeships and Worcestershire Apprenticeships are hosting a free webinar aimed at employers to help them understand how they can adhere to workplace guidance around social distancing whilst employing and training apprentices in these times, as well as how to recruit apprentices and the various benefits they offer.
Find out more and book a place on this webinar on the Worcestershire Apprenticeships website here - https://worcsapprenticeships.org.uk/events/
Furthermore the Careers Worcestershire helpline was launched in April to provide free qualified advice to young people. They will also be hosting a series of informative webinars in the coming weeks to provide more information on all the options available to young people.
To register for these webinars, please visit the Skills 4 Worcestershire website here - http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/careersportal/info/38/the_careers_worcs_information_advice_and_guidance_service/24/next_steps_webinar
Skills Ladder Ltd have, via Serco Ltd, access to European and UK government funding which allows them to deliver no-cost IT training to those in the workforce or to those who have been made redundant within the last three months. The criteria is that you work for an SME (less than 250 full-time employees) with an office within Worcestershire. Or if you have been made redundant (within the last 3 months), that you live in Worcestershire.
They currently have two courses currently running, both on using Excel / Spreadsheets. These are delivered online, with live trainers assisting and guiding you.
A beginners course: here and an intermediate course: here Both starting on 14th July and running for 3 weeks (14th July, 21st July & 28th July). They also run courses in other areas of IT such as PowerPoint, Word Processing, Video Editing, Photoshop. Please contact them to find our more Dan Heaford from Skills Ladder Ltd can be reached at dan.heaford@skillsladder.co.uk or 01684 298932 or his mobile of 07789908834.
Are you a business with over £3million pounds a year in wages costs and so a levee payer for apprenticeships?
Would you be willing to enter into an agreement to use your levee moneys locally rather than repay them to the government?
If so please contact the ED Team ecodev@malvernhills.gov.uk and we will discuss how you can work with a local business that needs but can not afford an apprentice.
Following recent announcements from government on the easing of social distancing measures and the beginning of businesses returning to work, the Worcestershire Growth Hub, are looking to gauge the thoughts and concerns of local business as they begin to take the next steps in their recovery and restart.
Please take a moment to complete our brief survey, that will not only help us understand the support you require, but also help us in informing government on the issue’s businesses encounter in Worcestershire.
Complete the NEW Worcestershire Business Central survey.
The ED team wants to fully understand the impact of the Coronavirus on specific businesses and the wider economy. This will help us tailor our service to you and feedback to Government to help shape their ongoing response.
If you would like to talk one-to-one with a member of the ED team about your business experience and effects of Covid-19, please email us with your contact details ecodev@malvernhills.gov.uk
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