The Conservative Group on Cornwall Council has welcomed a u-turn from the Council’s administration on the discretionary grant scheme for businesses.
Despite the scheme being discretionary, with the Government allowing local authorities leeway to build it to suit the needs in different areas, Cornwall Council had originally copied the grant award amounts from the Government’s national scheme, only allowing grant payments of £10,000 and £25,000.
They have now back-tracked and opened the scheme up to smaller awards.
Commenting, Cllr Linda Taylor Conservative Group Leader said:
“I am delighted that the Leader of the Council appears to have overruled other members of his Cabinet and now accepted that it is quite proper for the Council to consider making grants of less than £10,000 to some businesses.”
“This is something that the Conservative group first suggested nearly three weeks ago, only to be met by blanket refusals to even consider this point despite Westminster guidance being very clear that Councils had discretion over the size of grants. One size does not fit all, and there are many small Cornish businesses to whom a smaller grant could make the difference to their continued survival during these difficult times.”
“Perhaps now the Cabinet have understood the meaning of the word “discretion” they could also think about using their discretion to benefit some of the businesses who seem to have been ignored in this latest round of grants”
The Expression of Interest Form will be on the website for the next week at
