Chesterfield Borough Council has been awarded £1.27 million from the Government to provide discretionary grants to local businesses who were not eligible to receive funding from the Small Business Grant or Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Funds.

Councillor Jean Innes, Chesterfield Borough Council’s, cabinet member for Business Transformation and Customers, said: “We have already paid out over £24 million in business support grants to over 2100 Chesterfield businesses to support them during the Covid-19 pandemic and 661 businesses have received business rates relief worth over £18 million.

“Chesterfield Borough Council’s new discretionary scheme will provide the opportunity for more local businesses to receive grant support, particularly those with high property-related costs and who have struggled to trade during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The new grant scheme opens on Friday 5 June 2020 and closes for applications on 17 June 2020.

Small businesses can apply for grants of up to £25,000, though the council expects that most grant payments will be in the range of £2,500 to £10,000. The following types of businesses are eligible for this new grant:

• Small businesses in shared offices or other flexible workspaces; for example, business/industrial parks and incubator offices which do not have their own business rates assessment
• Regular market traders who do not have their own business rates assessment but have fixed building costs, such as rent
• Bed and Breakfast accommodation providers who are registered as a food business within Chesterfield Borough Council and pay Council Tax instead of Business Rates
• Charities in receipt of charitable business rates relief which would otherwise have been eligible for small business rates relief

To apply for this new grant scheme businesses must:

• Have been the occupier of a property with a trading address in Chesterfield borough used wholly or mainly for business purposes on 11 March 2020
• Employ fewer than 50 people
• Have a rateable value or annual rent or mortgage of below £51,000
• Be able to evidence relatively high ongoing fixed building costs
• Be able to demonstrate that they have had a significant drop in income due to the Covid-19 pandemic and related restrictions
• Be able to demonstrate the business is their sole or primary source of income

In order to apply you will need to download and complete an application form from the Chesterfield Borough Council website and provide the necessary supporting evidence. You will then need to submit it electronically via the council’s secure document management system on their website.

Further information on how to apply, criteria and evidence required is available here: www.chesterfield.gov.uk/your-council/coronavirus-information-hub/businesses-information.aspx#hub_discretionary_grants_local

If you have any further questions about these grants please contact the team by emailing discretionarygrants@chesterfield.gov.uk

Chesterfield-based mortgage advice firm Mortgage 1st have continued their ambitions growth plans with the recruitment of two new Mortgage Advisers, despite huge setbacks and disruption to both the financial services industry and the housing market due to Covid-19.

Two new advisers have just completed their ‘virtual’ induction and will be authorised to start looking after clients by the end of May. A further three new Advisers have also recently accepted a position at Mortgage 1st and once their applications are complete the Adviser head count will reach 20 by the end of the year.

Mortgage 1st was established in 2008 by Jon Stones at his dining table. His passion and hard work over the years has seen his team grow from a one-man-band to a strong and capable team of 28 today. Jon has ambitious future plans for Mortgage 1st and even a global pandemic hasn’t stood in his way in continuing with the recruitment and growth of his team.

Mortgage 1st has always offered ‘remote advice’ meaning everything can be done on email, Zoom or over the phone. As well as the Chesterfield based head office team, over half of the advisers work remotely and are based all over the UK. This has meant that they have seen very little disruption and have been able to continue working as normal for their customers during the last few uncertain months.

The Mortgage 1st head office has been closed for the duration of lockdown, their team were set up to work from home safely from day 1 meaning it’s been business as usual for their clients. The team have stayed in touch with one another using video and conference calls and were even able to conduct a virtual 2-day induction course for their new advisers.

Lisa Stones, HR & Marketing Director at Mortgage 1st (below) said: “We are delighted to be welcoming two new faces to the team who bring years of experience with them. Continued growth is a huge part of our company vision and even though we have had to adapt quickly, like all businesses have, during the past few months this hasn’t stopped us, we’ve just become more virtual!”

Since some of the housing market restrictions were lifted earlier this month Mortgage 1st have already seen a large spike in new enquires as the property market safely kick starts. This is great news for the industry, for house buyers & sellers and for the economy in general.

Click here to read more about Mortgage 1st

Chesterfield’s Custom Solar has successfully and safely completed another solar project working closely with Associated British Ports (ABP) at the Port of Southampton.

Despite the impact of Covid-19, the 120kWp solar system was successfully installed on the Ocean Terminal Coach Canopy within 6 working days, incorporating amended safe systems of work and social distancing measures.

The project is an extension to the existing 1.7mW previously installed by Custom Solar across multiple buildings on the port including the main Ocean Terminal, this means Solar is now providing over 20% of annual electrical demand.

The Port of Southampton is the nation’s second largest and most efficient container port, as well as the UK’s number one for cars and cruise. In 2016, ABP and its customers handled 89 million tonnes of cargo. They support 119,000 jobs and contribute £7.5 billion to the UK economy every year.

Custom Solar operate and maintain all of the systems across the port providing live monitoring via their own bespoke monitoring solution, full reactive maintenance and annual scheduled service visits.

Matthew Brailsford, MD of Custom Solar, said: “Once again we are very proud to be supporting ABP in the quest to source the majority of their power from solar energy, it proves what at integral role solar has in our energy future. This project is all the more amazing as we delivered it during a global pandemic and amended the entire way in which we approach our construction sites. It’s truly been a fantastic effort by the team.”

You can find out more about the project on the Case Studies section of Custom Solar’s website here.

Click here to find out more about Custom Solar