Businesses in Hinckley and Bosworth get support

The Borough Council has began making awards on the first day of the business grant award scheme.

Hundreds of businesses have been contacted to make sure they will be paid the grants amid the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 1600 businesses across the borough are eligible for the grants, which range from £10,000 to £25,000 depending on the size of the company.

In total, the council expect to pay out £22m in grant payments once all eligible businesses make their applications and staff work through processing these.

The council is intending to process more applications this week and is encouraging all eligible businesses to apply.

Chief Executive Bill Cullen said: "We have redeployed a number of staff from services across the organisation to contact the many businesses that we do not hold bank details for, to ensure we can make arrangements for secure payments to them and to mitigate through the systems we have in place against any potential fraud.

“To be in a position to be making payments to businesses from today is remarkable given the government has been continually updating guidance to councils, the most recent of which arrived yesterday. 

“To help our teams to continue to work through the payments as quickly as possible we are asking companies to go online and sign up for e-billing."

Council Leader Stuart Bray added: "This is an absolute priority, we are determined to get the grants out to our businesses as soon as we possibly can to mitigate the impact of the closedown on jobs and the local economy. We appreciate it's a very worrying time and we are determined to do all we can to help our local businesses. 

“My thanks to everyone at the council who is working on this in very trying circumstances."