Cheshire East Council has recently launched two grant schemes targeted at stimulating growth of the local business community.

The Flexible Workspace Grant and the Sustainable and Inclusive Growth Programme Grant are available to applicants via the council’s business growth and investment team, with applications being welcomed now.

The Flexible Workspace Grant is offering grants from £25,000 up to £100,000 to landlords or leaseholders to refurbish empty or underused property into flexible co-working spaces.

The criteria for application is straightforward. Applicants need to:

• be businesses owning a commercial property in an urban centre in the borough;
• be liable for paying business rates to Cheshire East Council (where rates are payable);
• hold their own business bank account; and

Apply for the grant through the application form, which can be found on the support packages and services for business pages on the council’s website.

The Sustainable and Inclusive Growth Programme offers grants from £1,000 to £10,000 to businesses looking to invest in new equipment, technology and business practices, which will decarbonise their operations.

The eligibility criteria for this grant is that organisations must:

• Trade from a property within the borough;
• Have a decarbonisation plan or growth plan to support their application;and
• Only apply for expenditure that has occurred since 1 April this year.

To enable businesses to get the right help to access these grants, the council has set up a specialised business support hub.

The hub works with organisations looking to grow, adapt, diversify and expand their current operation to support long-term sustainability. It has everything a business needs to know to start a business, or scale and grow an existing business with a team of specialist advisers, who can support with grant applications. Businesses can register for support through the hub.

Councillor Mark Goldsmith, chair of Cheshire East Council’s economy and growth committee said: “These are two very different grants which I hope will appeal to a wide remit of businesses in our borough.

“Increasingly, showing versatility and flexibility are typical attributes that many forward-thinking organisations are having to show, so on that front the Flexible Workspace Grant is something I think will resonate well.

“The Sustainable and Inclusive Growth Grant is very much focused towards companies with a strong environmental conscience, which connects directly with the council’s own ambitious target of being carbon neutral by 2025. I’d urge businesses of any size to look at this grant and to get in touch with our business support hub colleagues directly, who will be very happy to help.”

These grants are distributed by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and are part of the government’s Levelling Up agenda, which is providing £2.6bn of funding through local investment by March 2025.

Cheshire East Council has been allocated £12.4m, with a further (circa) £1.5m allocation specifically for an adult numeracy programme known as ‘Multiply’ from the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.