Central Bedfordshire Council news and press releases

Third Additional Restrictions Grant scheme set to launch

Thursday, 25 March 2021

More businesses will be able to access further grant funding from today as we're set to launch our latest Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG3) scheme.

Having reviewed our ARG policy, we've made more changes to enable additional businesses to apply for grants. The changes include:

  • removing Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) recipients and company directors receiving furlough from the list of ineligible applicants. Now, applicants who receive SEISS, or company directors who have received furlough payments, can receive £2,000 if they meet the qualifying criteria
  • 'topping-up’ payments to all successful ARG1 applicants. All applicants that received an ARG payment in round 1 of our ARG scheme will receive the same payment as they did from ARG1, except those that do not operate from a rated premises. Businesses that do not operate from a rated premises will receive a payment of £2,000 rather than the £4,000 they received in ARG1. These applicants do not need to reapply for a ‘top-up’ payment as we will contact all eligible businesses to confirm that they are still trading before any payments are issued

Councillor David Shelvey, our Executive Member Corporate Resources, said:

To date, we have successfully administered at least £94m in financial support for local businesses in the form of grants and rate relief, and this will continue to rise over the coming months. We set a wide scope for ARG2 to support as many businesses as possible, and through ARG3 we are now able to offer more support than initially anticipated. The ARG was always intended to be an iterative process so that we could ensure the money was distributed as widely as possible and supported as many businesses as possible. All applications to ARG3 will be processed in order of when they are received, and we encourage businesses to apply for ARG3 as soon as possible to avoid missing out.

Businesses can apply for the ARG3 scheme from 25 March until 22 April.