Don’t miss out on Omicron Hospitality Grant

UPDATE: 17.03.22

There are still a number of councils across the UK that have significant levels of unallocated funding that needs to be dished out to local businesses impacted by the Omicron variant.

BEIS has updated the local authority reported payments to 27 February 2022
for the following Grants:
– Additional Restrictions Grant
– Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant

On the ARG funding, some examples of councils that
have still not passed their funding allocations to local businesses include:
o Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames still has £1.4m in
unallocated funds
o Oxford still has £900,000
o Cotswold still has £550,000
o Southend still has £3.5m
o York still has£1.3m
o Dorset still has £700k

This funding has to be allocated by councils before the end of the financial
year or returned to Government. We urge you to be persistent in chasing your local council if you have so far, been unable to attain these grants for your business.

You will know that in December 2021, the UK Government announced the Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant and a top up to ARG funding for businesses across the UK who do not have a bricks & mortar rate-paying premises.

Each nation has its own system when it comes to allocating funding and local Authorities (councils) across England have not distributed all of this funding and must do so before the end of March.

The Government is encouraging businesses to apply to their local councils for remaining grant funding to help them through the pandemic. Business minister Paul Scully said ‘£850 million worth of Covid-19 support grants are still available’, and he encouraged firms in England to apply.

Each Local Authority has a different way of administering these grants, however, they should all have an application process for both the Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant and topped up ARG funding.

We urge you to contact your Local Authority to apply for this grant funding but make sure you are applying for the correct grant.

If you are a bricks and mortar business in a rateable premises, you should apply for the Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant.

If you are a mobile business, you should apply for ARG funding.

It is sometimes difficult to find the right person to speak to at your Local Authority if you are having trouble applying for a grant or have been turned down. Often it is the Head of Business  or  Head of  Enterprise or a title similar to this that you could email for support if the grant team are not able to help, you can also write to your MP if you feel that you need them to advocate for you.

Persistence is key, keep chasing updates and please feed back to us if you are experiencing a lot of difficulty with accessing funding after you have applied.