What is the background?
For many years, businesses in the North East have benefitted from being able to access national grant funds to support capital investment projects. However, following a change in Government policy in the mid-2010s, the availability of grants has varied between regions and sectors and there is now no longer a simple “one size fits all” capital grant scheme available nationally.
These changes in Government policy spawned numerous regional grant schemes across England, and UNW, working in partnership with UMi since 2011, has managed a number of these schemes in the North East, such as Let’s Grow, North of Tyne Growth Fund, County Durham Growth Fund and The Growth Fund.
These programmes are now all closed, so what is currently available?
North East schemes
Three new programmes have recently been launched:
Durham Business Growth Programme
This can offer grants from £10,000 to £200,000 for eligible businesses investing more than £25,000 in County Durham. Grants of up to £10,000 are also available to support third party consultancy costs. Further details can be found here.
Business Growth Fund
This fund offers discretionary grants from £20,000 up to £300,000 for businesses investing in Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland local authority areas. Information on the scheme is available here.
Northumberland Small Business Service
This service can offer grant support from £10,000 to £300,000 to small businesses in rural areas of Northumberland who are investing in capital expenditure. Further details can be found here.
In addition to these new funds, there is also the North of Tyne Inward Investment Fund which is available to support new inward investors into Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland local authority areas. This fund can offer grant support of between £100,000 and £1m on eligible projects.
A common theme of all these grant schemes is that the investments must be linked to job outputs and applicants must be able to demonstrate that the investment would not proceed without grant support. For this reason, applicants must not make any commitment to the project before receiving an offer of support.
National schemes
There are some sector specific schemes run nationally by government departments such as the Department for Business & Trade (“DBT”) and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (“DESNZ”), although these can be very competitive with tight deadlines.
UNW has been actively involved in a number of these schemes, either by helping companies to apply, being a due diligence provider on behalf of the UK Government or providing grant assurance reports to accompany claims. Examples of such schemes are the Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme and the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund. Whilst these schemes are not currently open to new applications, it is possible that further rounds of funding will be announced in the future.
The North East produces 30% of all UK passenger vehicles, including 20% of all battery electric vehicles across Europe. With this background, the region is ideally suited to benefit from Government support towards vehicle electrification. One scheme which is currently open to support businesses in this sector is the Automotive Transformation Fund. This is an £850m fund which can provide grants of up to 25% of eligible costs for companies investing in an electrified automotive supply chain in the UK. The minimum grant for this scheme is £1m.
The Government may also use the exceptional Regional Growth Fund to provide grants to large, game-changing investments in England. Scotland and Wales have their own grant assistance schemes.
How can UNW help?
We can help with:
- Supporting companies apply to national grant schemes;
- Providing due diligence for successful applicants to the Automotive Transformation Fund and other schemes requiring external due diligence;
- Providing grant assurance reports to accompany claims.
Our team at UNW has a combined 65 years’ experience of helping companies access grant support, so if you think you have an eligible project for any of the above schemes, please contact laramarshall@unw.co.uk.