How your Sunderland business can receive thousands of pounds in lockdown grants

Businesses emerging from the coronavirus lockdown are urged to apply for a new round of grant funding to help their recovery.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

Sunderland firms have just under three weeks to state their case for Discretionary Grant Funding of up to £10,000.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) money is being distributed locally by Sunderland City Council and follows £270,000 in payments made to more than 40 city businesses during May’s first round of funding.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad
Businesses across Sunderland can now apply for a new round of government funding to help them emerge from the covid-19 lockdown.Businesses across Sunderland can now apply for a new round of government funding to help them emerge from the covid-19 lockdown.
Businesses across Sunderland can now apply for a new round of government funding to help them emerge from the covid-19 lockdown.

Peter McIntyre, executive director of city development, said: “With each round of funding released, we have mobilised to ensure that eligible businesses are able to get much-needed funding into their bank accounts as quickly as possible to help keep them going until they’re able to resume normal levels of trading.

“It’s a challenging time for many organisations in the city and we’re working hard to support as many of them as we can within the guidelines set out by BEIS.”

The council has also pointed out that some phase one applications are still being assessed.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

For the new phase, applications from manufacturing, engineering, software and technology companies will be initially favoured with the firms needing to satisfy the following criteria:

Have a Rateable Value (RV) assessment and a RV for a property of below £51,000; Evidence that they were trading on March 11, 2020; Be able to demonstrate a loss of income due to Covid-19;

Businesses who are eligible for any other Government business support grant funds, including phase one of the fund, are not eligible and nor are home-based firms.

Applications opened on Monday, June 29, and must be submitted by midnight on Sunday, July 19.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

No payments will be made until applications for the scheme closes.

Grant award limits are expected to be £5,000 for micro businesses and £10,000 for other eligible applicants.

The online form at www.sunderland.gov.uk/discretionaryform will guide candidates through the application process and prompt them for any information required.

They can also use the “contact us” function in the online form, email [email protected] or call (0191) 5611194 for further information.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world.

But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you.

How to subscribe to the print edition:

It’s easy to subscribe to your local newspaper. We have arranged a special 20 per cent off subscription offer for people to take advantage of.

Visit www.localsubsplus.co.uk, choose the newspaper title, the type of subscription and enter your details.