| COBRA Meeting Eastbourne COBRA meets again tomorrow morning. Please let us know if there are any issues you would like raising with our partners |
| BID Survey – Survive | Revive | Thrive Can you spare just a few minutes to complete our survey of BID businesses. We want to know what your priorities are, how we can support you now, when you re-open, and in the future. Click here to complete the survey. |
| Phase Two: Town Centre Improvements East Sussex County Council are expected to approve plans tomorrow (Wednesday) for an additional £3m to be spent on Phase 2 of the Town Centre Development. The proposals will improve Terminus Road from Bankers Corner to Langney Road and create a new public square outside Debenhams. Full details can be found here |
| Business Support Checker Tool A new ‘support finder’ tool has been launched to help businesses and self-employed people across the UK to quickly and easily determine what financial support is available to them during the coronavirus pandemic.The new online platform on gov.uk asks business owners and the self-employed to fill out a quick and simple online questionnaire. They will then be directed to a list of all the financial support they may be eligible for. |
| Furlough Scheme The online claim service for furloughed staff is now online here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wages-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme According to the BBC there were over 67,000 applications in the first thirty minutes of the portal going live. The furlough scheme has been extended to cover June. More here |
| Small Business Grants Businesses across the town are reporting that they have started to receive the payments of the small business grants. We understand that you should receive a remittance notice from Eastbourne Borough Council via email just prior to the money being deposited. Please note – you have to apply for the grant from Eastbourne Borough Council. So, if you have yet to make a claim for your grant – please follow this link to access the portal: https://lewes-eastbourne.grantapproval.co.uk/ If you are having issues completing the application – please get in touch. |
| Dividend Payments Minister for Small Business, Paul Scully, is working on a solution for the Self-Employed Paul Scully MP, is trying to find a mechanism to support self-employed people working as a registered business. At the moment, people in this situation are not eligible for self-employment support and, although they could furlough themselves, would generally only receive £132.80 by doing so and would not be able to do any work.If you would like to support his initiative, his twitter handle is @scullyp and his email address is [email protected] If you are self employed and have not benefitted from a grant, send him details of your situation.https://www.cityam.com/business-minister-working-on-scheme-to-protect-businesses-which-pay-using-dividends/ |
| HMRC Time To Pay HMRC has updated the information on it’s Coronavirus helpline for all businesses and self-employed people in financial distress that want to apply for support through HMRC’s Time To Pay servicehttps://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/coronavirus-covid-19-helpline |