Harrogate Borough Council is set to hand back up to £530,000 in discretionary grants to government, despite some businesses not receiving support.
Some self-employed people in the district said they were rejected for grants because they do not have business premises, even though other authorities had extended support to those who were initially turned down.
Three people who have spoken to the Stray Ferret said they had not received any “meaningful support” during the pandemic. One described it as a “real kick in the teeth”.
Jennie Eyres, who is a self-employed teacher trainer based in Ripon, said she was booked up with work up until the end of the academic year. But that work disappeared after the pandemic started.
She said:
“There is a persistent worry to the point of sickness and headaches. It is always in the back of your mind about how are you going to pay for things.
“We had to think carefully about how we do that and where we get the money from.”
Fixed property costs
In a council report last week, the authority agreed a final increase in remaining grants to be handed out and estimated that “between £270,000 and £530,000 would be returned to government”. Funds are expected to be handed back after September 30.
Councils were given the power to offer discretionary grants of up to £10,000 designed to support businesses who had struggled during the pandemic.
The government set out criteria which allowed councils to determine which cases to support. The borough council offered funds to businesses with fixed property costs, meaning those who did not have a premises missed out, even if they had suffered a loss of income during the crisis.
But other authorities, including South Gloucestershire Council, extended the grants to those who run their business from home.
Mrs Eyres has appealed the council’s decision to reject her claim twice. Two others who spoke to the Stray Ferret were also rejected because their business were run from a residential premises.
Andrew Stanley, a retired army captain turned coach in Knaresborough, was also denied a grant because he does not have a fixed premises. He had a busy March before lockdown, but work has been difficult to come by since then.
He said:
“The work I do involves sitting in closed rooms and not everyone is comfortable with that. I’ve been living off credit cards and a bounce back loan from my banks.”
Meanwhile, Hannah Ruddy from Harrogate, who runs music classes for children, went as far as writing to the Arts Council after being left without support during the pandemic.
She described the rejection of a discretionary grant as a “real kick in the teeth for local businesses”.
Earlier this year, Hannah was backed by Harrogate and Knaresborough MP, Andrew Jones, who joined a cross-party group of MPs which aimed to stand up for people like Hannah who have been excluded from coronavirus government support schemes.
In response, Harrogate Borough Council said it followed national guidance when distributing its grants and its initial scheme handed out £48 million to over 4,000 businesses, while its further discretionary funding also followed national guidelines.
A spokesperson for the council said:
“Our scheme reflected the government guidance that stated it was primarily and predominantly aimed at micro and small businesses with relatively high ongoing fixed property-related costs, and has suffered a significant fall in income due to the covid-19 crisis.
“The government set national criteria and priority businesses for the grant funds but allowed local authorities to determine which cases to support within those criteria (available on our website).
“We needed to determine which businesses to support based on the amount of funding available and understandably there will be differences between local authorities.”
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