£10m Top-Up Grants announced for Southport business owners

31st January 2021
The 'Sir Tom' Nutcracker named after Captain Sir Tom Moore, outside Deli Volare on Lord Street in Southport. Photo by Andrew Brown Media

A new £10m round of top-up grants will be made available for all 1,500 businesses supported by the first two rounds of the Liverpool City Region’s emergency COVID-related support grants.

Depending on the size of the business, the top-up grants will be worth between £2,250 and £10,500. The funding is the latest in of a series announced by the Leaders, the Metro Mayor and Acting Mayor of the region’s six local councils to support the local economy.

In response to the government putting the Liverpool City Region into Tier 3 back in October, the Combined Authority and local councils launched a £40m fund to support businesses operating in the leisure and hospitality sectors, which form a large part of the local economy.

This included a £9.5m fund, the first of its kind in the country, to support small and micro businesses working in leisure, hospitality and retail. This included funding for the self-employed, sole traders, home-based workers and their supply chains, many of whom have been excluded from government support since the pandemic started.

In a joint statement, the Leaders and Acting Mayor of the six City Region Local Authorities and Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, said:

“Local businesses have taken a battering over the past year, but we’ve been doing everything we can to help support and sustain them throughout the pandemic.

“We’ve already given out tens of millions of pounds to help keep 1,500 local businesses afloat and, with the current lockdown, we know things are still tough for many. Today we’re making another £10m available to help safeguard people’s jobs and livelihoods through the next few months.