Waltham Forest traders offered new Covid support

Waltham Forest Council will stop accepting applications for grants of up to £2,100 at 5pm on December 16 or when all the money is gone.

A separate grant of up to £3,000 is available for businesses forced to close or badly affected by lockdown and appears to have no deadline.

The new Additional Restrictions Discretionary Grant, opened today (December 3) is intended to support those not eligible for this grant.

This particularly includes market traders, suppliers to industries shut down by the pandemic and businesses that do not pay business rates and were forced to close.

Read more: Walthamstow market gives key workers discount on everything until 2021

In June, a Leyton community cafe said it was struggling to stay afloat after missing out on coronavirus support because it is in a park and thus does not pay rates.

Joy Watkins, owner of KuKooLaLa in Jubilee Park, was told that if her business was located just 100 metres away on the street she could have received the £10,000 small business grant.

Speaking at the time, she said: “In the nicest way possible, the council have been forced to look at things only in terms of their monetary value because of austerity.

“The Government is providing less and less money for them, making it more difficult on the ground.”

The cafe will still not be eligible for the Additional Restrictions Discretionary Grant as it was allowed to remain open during the second lockdown.

The new grants range from £180 to £2,100 for suppliers, from £180 to £1,154 for businesses that do not pay rates and from £116 to £723 for market traders.

More information about eligibility and how to apply is available here.

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