Sandwell Council pleads with businesses to apply for cash grants
Businesses in Sandwell are being urged to apply for grants to help them tackle coronavirus, after 1,700 companies failed to put in applications.
The call to get online and apply comes as the council announced it has paid "lifeline" grants worth £28 million to more than 2,400 firms.
Councillor Yvonne Davies, leader of Sandwell Council, has said: “Our staff continue to pull out all the stops to process applications and make sure businesses receive these ‘lifeline’ grants.
“Most businesses can expect to receive a payment within two weeks of submitting a claim.
“We can only process those requests we have received, so I would urge any business that has not yet applied to get in touch as soon as they possibly can, so we can process their claim.”
Council bosses have said staff are working "flat out" to process claims as quickly as possible and have written to more than 5,500 since the start of April asking for key information in order to verify and process claims.
Sandwell has paid 2,436 businesses a total of £27.9 million and 54 percent of grants to businesses that have applied have been processed.
They include 2,072 small business awards of £10,000 and 364 retail hospitality and leisure grants of up to £25,000.
Councillor Wasim Ali, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for resources and core services, added: “We have put in extra resources to telephone those businesses that have yet to reply to us, and our staff are working very hard to check and process all claims.
“Nearly 600 requests received last week were a direct result of our team phoning businesses that had not replied to our letter. Please do get in touch if you are eligible and have not yet responded to us.”
Businesses that believe they may be eligible should apply online at the council’s businesses webpage where they can check the qualifying criteria and complete the form to request a grant.
