By 
It’s good news for businesses in York, North Yorkshire and East Riding. This year has seen the launch of over £27million of business support programmes that cover everything from large scale capital investments to upskilling members of staff. And for businesses wondering how to navigate across the business support landscape, there’s a simple answer. Get in touch with How’s Business, the Growth Hub for York, North Yorkshire and East Riding to find out about the different types of support for business in the area.
How’s Business is a free service to help business owners find the support that they need. It’s run by the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership and is expert at understanding the needs of business owners to make sure they get excellent advice and support for their business. The Growth Hub works with great business support services and funding providers to pull together all the best small business funding options so they can easily be found in one place. Searching for local business grants can be incredibly frustrating and so How’s Business does the hard work for you, leaving you to grow your business.
Below is an overview of some the different support programmes available. To find out if any of the support available is relevant to your business, send an email to the How’s Business support team at support@howsbusiness.org. They’ll be able to assess what you’re looking for and point you in the right direction for the relevant support.
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund provides debt and equity finance for business owners in the North of England to start up, scale up and stay ahead of their competition. If you’ve got a solid business plan, the fund can provide between £25k to £750k in debt funding and £50k to £2million in equity finance. If you’ve been offered finance by the bank but it doesn’t cover the full costs of the project, the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund could provide the additional finance you need. All applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Business skills training programmes
There are several programmes that can provide business skills training to help you overcome the growing skills gap. Skills Support for the Workforce provides fully funded training opportunities for you to increase your business competitiveness by up-skilling employees. The programme will conduct a thorough training needs analysis in your business and design and deliver a bespoke training plan tailored to your staff and business needs.
Higher Skills can provide funding to cover the full cost of training staff in areas such as maths and English. This programme ensures employees have the necessary skills to succeed in other training and receive advanced qualifications, giving you the top level skills you need for your business expansion. There is no upper limit to the amount of skills funding available from either Skills Support for the Workforce or Higher Skills.
The Yorkshire Apprenticeship Hub provides support to close the skills gap and create new opportunities for businesses. The programme works with business owners and offers impartial advice on training, delivery, recruitment and funding. An apprentice doesn’t have to be someone new to your business either, you can develop an apprenticeship scheme to ensure current employees have the skills they need to successfully do their jobs as your business expands.
Product and Process Innovation
The Product and Process Innovation scheme provides grants to help you create new products or develop a new process. The grant can be used to buy the equipment and other capital purchases to support your project. The funding must be matched by you and can cover capital costs up to 40% of a project up to £20,000.
Manufacturing Growth Programme
The Manufacturing Growth Programme provides grants to cover the cost of consultancy in order to improve an area of weakness and support business expansion, including finance, marketing, and research and development. The grant funding covers 35% of consultancy fees with an average value of around £4,000, meaning that you would receive £1,400 towards guidance.
Let’s Grow
Let’s Grow have finance for business owners who are aiming to create new, sustainable jobs in the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding area. If you can’t complete your growth project without help from a funding provider, then a Let’s Grow grant could provide you with funded support to purchase new equipment, land or buildings to help achieve your business expansion. Typically, the grant will cover between 10-20% of the project’s capital costs, with values between £25,000 and £1million.
To qualify for this grant, you can’t have already started work on your growth project and will need to prove that the project won’t be able to begin without funding from Let’s Grow.
Get in touch
This is just a small example of some of the different support schemes that are available to help growing businesses. If you’re planning to expand your business and want a simple answer to what help is out there, get in touch with How’s Business, the Growth Hub for York, North Yorkshire and East Riding.
How’s Business offers a one-stop-shop for funding and support for business owners across the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding area to make it much easier for you to find the support you need. To find out more about local business grants and small business support programmes, contact the How’s Business support team by emailing support@howsbusiness.org. You’ll receive more information on the programmes listed here, as well as additional support providers and, where applicable, be put in contact with fund managers.
