Businesses which form the bedrock of North Yorkshire’s economy have the chance to benefit from £1 million in funding through a new package of capital grants.

Small and micro businesses, which make up 98 per cent of the county’s economy, can apply for the small business grant scheme, administered by North Yorkshire Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

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The scheme is focussed on increasing business growth, productivity and resilience and grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 are available.

This is the second round of small business grants, following an incredibly successful first round of this programme in the last financial year which saw £750,000 awarded to businesses across the county.

nother recipient of a grant, Annie Richardson, a sports therapist based in Ampleforth, used the £2,475 she received to upgrade the plinth she uses when treating clients and purchase a weights machine.

Within her business she treats older clients and works with cancer patients to help them before and after surgery and the new plinth is safer and more stable.

Mrs Richardson said: “The two pieces of equipment together have greatly helped my business and recently I’ve got more referrals from physiotherapists and an abdominal surgeon for a patient of his who was due to undergo treatment for cancer.

“The number of clients I am able to now take on because of it has grown. It has made a huge difference to the clients’ comfort and confidence and my ability to help people with confidence and safety.”

Micro businesses, with less than 10 employees, and small firms with less than 50 employees can also access free support beyond the grant through the business advisory teams at the council and the York and North Yorkshire Growth Hub.

North Yorkshire’s economy is heavily slanted towards smaller businesses and there are more than 32,700 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises alongside 90 large businesses in the county.

Council leader and the chair of the SPF Board in North Yorkshire, Cllr Carl Les, said: “We are delighted to open this grant scheme once again after seeing such a positive uptake for the first round.

“Hundreds of small businesses applied for funding and accessed support and we hope to work with even more this year – including sole traders, start-ups, home businesses and social enterprises as well as landlords and people looking to diversify their farm businesses and limited companies.

“This time we have allocated an even larger funding pot to the scheme to enable it to be bigger and better, and have used learning from last year to improve the application process. Our ambition is to see a broad range of applications which seek to make long-lasting improvements to our small and medium businesses across the county.”

To aid businesses with their applications, the York and North Yorkshire Growth Hub, with its partners at Enterprise Cube, has organised two webinars on writing a business plan and a cash flow forecast which will take place on May 16 and 17.

The development manager at the York and North Yorkshire Federation of Small Businesses, Carolyn Frank, said: “This scheme has provided a practical way that the local authorities have been able to work together with us and other partners to unlock Government funding and get it directly to businesses in our area, to help them to innovate and grow.

“It is exciting to see the transformations taking place across so many small businesses thanks to the small business grants and other business support.

“Small businesses are the mainstay of the economy of York and North Yorkshire and seeing flexible local support designed specifically for their needs and with them in mind has been an exciting step forward thanks to UK SPF.”

The closing date for applications is Friday, July 12.

Find out more and access the grant scheme here: https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/uk-shared-prosperity-fund/capital-grants-small-businesses-and-enterprises

Further details of the webinars can be found here: https://www.ynygrowthhub.com/blog/news/webinars-launched-to-support-business-grant-applicants/