Coronavirus: Council support for our borough’s businesses

We know this is a very worrying time for businesses and their employees.

Blackburn with Darwen is home to 6,000 thriving and vibrant businesses. Our town centres and business parks provide major opportunities to work and learn. They also provide access to key public services and leisure facilities which are enjoyed by local residents and many others living outside the Borough.

We recognise the sacrifices and changes people must make in the current emergency.

However, there will be an end to Coronavirus so it’s important that, once we get through this period, our businesses are in the best possible place to move forward. As a Council, we are committed to supporting them.

We welcome the various government announcements of support for businesses. We have received information about the delivery of local grants to businesses that the funds will be with us by April 1. We will be pulling out all the stops to get them processed quickly so please bear with us.

We also hope, and we would urge, that there is further support for sole-traders and the self-employed announced soon.

If any business is struggling to pay any of their outstanding invoices or accounts with the Council, then we want them to get in touch with us as quickly as possible using our online form.

We are committed to keep you updated with all the latest information and advice through our direct channels, business networks like the Hive, Blackburn’s BID, and the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce.

The Council is also working with the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership and it Growth Hub – Boost – which will be aiming to provide more bespoke services to businesses in need.

We are here to listen to your individual circumstances and to help make sure you can access the support you’re entitled to help ease your financial pressures, including information and advice from other parts of the Council and key business networks.

We will continue to support our local businesses as much as we can over this extremely difficult period.

Councillor Phil Riley, Executive Member for Growth and Development

Martin Kelly, Director of Growth and Development

General information about how the Government is supporting businesses can be found here.