Hello, I’m Cllr Tony Dale, Cabinet Member for Economy and Skills. It's really encouraging that lockdown is easing and many hospitality businesses will now be allowed to open from 4 July. Whilst this is welcome, opening businesses which rely on lots of people to create a vibrant atmosphere will not be without challenges.
A lot of detailed guidance has been published this week to help the owners and managers of these businesses, and we've arranged a webinar to help those opening licensed premises ensure that they have considered everything. There are details and links to this and various other sources of advice in the sections below, and we have a useful business re-opening checklist on our business recovery page. Ultimately the safety of employees and staff is the business's responsibility, but we are here to help and I encourage everyone to study the guidance and undertake a risk assessment.
To update you on the Discretionary Business Grants Scheme - since the scheme opened at the start of June we’ve paid out £1.7million to 233 businesses. Each business has received an average of £6,995. A further 13 businesses have been allocated funds which will be paid once we receive further information.
The council has arranged a webinar covering 'Considerations when reopening a Licensed Premises' that will be held at 1pm on Tuesday 30 June. The session is suitable for anyone running licensed premises such as pubs, bars, restaurants or cafes and we encourage everyone to sign up.
Visit Britain has launched a 'business advice hub' for businesses getting ready to open. It includes guidance on reopening a whole variety of tourism and attraction businesses along with practical information on operating under social distancing guidelines.
Visit Britain has also just launched a UK-wide industry standard and consumer mark to provide confidence for customers as the tourism sector works towards reopening. The 'We’re Good To Go’ mark demonstrates that the business is adhering to the respective government and public health guidance, has carried out a COVID-19 risk assessment and has the required processes in place.
Businesses must complete an online self-assessment to prove they have put the necessary processes in place before being able to display the ‘We’re Good To Go’ mark in their premises and online.
Amazon Small Business Accelerator is a free, online educational programme for anyone who wants to start a new online business or grow an existing one. The scheme is being run by Enterprise Nation and includes:
free e-learning (online training) for 200,000 new and existing businesses
intensive bootcamps for 1,000 offline businesses
no Amazon seller fees for three months, free cloud services and logistics support
Innovate UK and The Prince's Trust are running a £2.2 million programme to support young people developing innovative ideas to change the face of business in Britain.
The Young Innovators programme includes one-on-one business coaching, a grant scheme and a high-profile #IdeasMeanBusiness campaign.
The government wants to put green technologies at the heart of economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and zero emission vehicle technologies are a key part of this.
Innovate UK is running a funding competition to help business led projects accelerate the development of these technologies.
UK Hospitality - represents the broad hospitality sector – covering everything from bars, coffee shops, contract catering, hotels, nightclubs, visitor attractions and other leisure venues
Cotswold Taste - not for profit co-operative providing advice, business, marketing and promotional support to its members, food chain producers and support businesses
Summary of business support
The government's business support website sets out the full range of business support measures that have been made available to UK businesses and employees.
Please forward this email to others who might find this useful and encourage them to sign up to further updates.You can access previous editions of this newsletter too.
Our council Coronavirus web pages have updates about business support, communities and leisure, bins and recycling, elections and council meetings, planning, building and council news.
We hope you found this newsletter useful. We would like them to be as relevant as possible so please let us know what you think and don’t forget to send us your news to press@cotswold.gov.uk