North East LEP area £2.4million ERDF Covid19 Kick Start and Recovery Grant Funding

The North East LEP region has been awarded approximately £2.4millon ERDF to support the regions small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs’) to recover from Covid19.

Expressions of interest will be invited from Tuesday 11th August.

The funding is split across two funds:

Kickstarting Tourism: £576k for eligible businesses that depend on visitors for income
Restart and recovery funding: £1.8million for eligible businesses in the wider economy who have been adversely effected by Covid19.

The funding is designed to support businesses who have been adversely impacted by Covid19 to implement recovery plans.

Following the submission of an Expression of Interest, businesses will have a review meeting with one of our Growth Hub Connectors to confirm eligibility, to review their recovery plans and to ensure that the business is accessing the breadth of support available to help them to implement their plan (including the Covid19 Kick Start ERDF fund).

The funding is for SMEs’ who are eligible for ERDF support and are able to demonstrate that they have been adversely impacted by Covid19.

To receive grant funding businesses will need to enter into a funding contract, complete the work (or purchase the goods) and pay their provider/supplier before they can claim the grant.

In addition to managing allocations across both funds, we will aim to, as ‘closely as possible’, distribute the funding to reflect the business populations across the regions seven Local Authority areas.

This will require active management and we may therefore adjust our approach as and when required. To manage demand we will also adopt a phased approach which will see the periodic closure and reopening of expressions of interest.