A grant funding scheme created by Warwickshire County Council eight years ago has proved an immense success, supporting more than 100 small businesses with grants totalling in excess of £2.5million.
The Small Capital Grants scheme, launched by the County Council in 2015, has spectacularly fulfilled its objective to support small businesses with their growth plans. It has supported 118 businesses with grants totalling £2,503,171, leading to the creation of a forecasted 469 jobs.
The scheme, which provides grant support of between £5,000 and £35,000 for micro and small enterprises, opened back in September 2015 with its first three recipients: Warwick-based Church Farm Brewery, Ag-Con machinery solutions in Shipston-on-Stour and Mudwalls Farm growers on the southern edge of the county. Eight years later, those businesses are still flourishing - three of 118 to which the Small Capital Grants scheme has given vital impetus in order to grow, with a significant knock-on effect to the local economy.
The scheme is still going strong. Recently, Fitness Worx, a gym and fitness personal training business with outlets in several Warwickshire towns, expanded following a Small Capital Grant.
“We had been looking to open in Stratford for a while,” said founder Jack Gibson. “Then the perfect premises came up and the grant from the County Council enabled us to fit out the place exactly as we wanted with top-quality gear.
“Our customers are loving it. We would have been able to do it without the grant but not as well and not as quickly. It’s been a really positive development for the business as a whole as we have taken on two new employees and are in the process of recruiting another.”
The Small Capital Grants scheme supports businesses from the whole gamut of the Warwickshire economy including the Visitor Sector, Manufacturing, Food & Drink, Education, Automotive, Leisure, Events & Conference, Hospitality, Wellness, Retail, Engineering and Logistics.
Warwickshire County Council Leader, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, said:
"The Small Capital Grants scheme has proved a sustained, outstanding success in supporting small businesses and the local economy in all parts of Warwickshire and all sectors.
“We are blessed by a wonderfully vibrant community of small businesses in our county and it is great to know that so many of them, their employees and their customers, have benefited from this simple but hugely effective scheme.
“It is still going strong - I would urge all small businesses considering growth plans to think about whether a Small Capital Grant could assist them."
To find out more about this or what other support is available to your business, please call CW Growth Hub on 0300 060 3747
For more information on Business Finance week please visit: https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/finance-hub/business-finance-week/