10/01/13

Coventry and Warwickshire LEP offers major funding

Companies and local authorities in Coventry and Warwickshire could benefit from £4-5 million of new investment designed to boost the local economy.

The Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CW LEP) has announced the latest round of the Growing Places Fund, the Government’s support initiative to help areas create jobs and economic growth.

Companies or organisations with proposals which could attract loans or grants are being encouraged to put their schemes forward for consideration by Wednesday, January 16.

Martin Yardley, chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP, said proposals which had not been successful in attracting other funding from the Government were being encouraged to resubmit.

He said:

“Growing Places is quite wide ranging in the type of investment it will support. Capital funding for premises, infrastructure, new equipment, new products and research and development will all be considered – as long as they lead to the creation of new jobs. Proposals can also include requests for funding for up to 50 per cent towards the costs of planning applications that lead to the creation of new jobs. We are particularly interested in hearing from businesses which have prepared good quality applications to the Regional Growth Fund, the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) or other sources of public funding, but have been unsuccessful due to the large number of high quality applications that national funds must consider. We believe there is great potential to drive the expansion of local firms and the creation of new jobs very quickly by finding the best of these proposals rejected by Central Government and funding them locally.”

Funding will be available in the form of grants or loans and where loan funding is requested, the interest rate on offer will be calculated during the application process and will be based on the financial health of the company and European Commission Guidance.

Bids should be in the region of £100,000 to £2million and clearly show how the grant will be matched against the company’s own resources as part of a wider investment project.

CW LEP will conduct a robust economic assessment of all bids, and if they do not appear to provide good value for money or feasible employment impacts then they will be turned down.

Criteria to assess the bids will include – among other things – investment readiness, how they fit with the CW LEP strategy and other local strategies, value for money in terms of public investment required to create new jobs and how likely it is that the projects would happen in the absence of public funding.

Details on how companies can forward an expression of interest can be found at: http://www.cwlep.com/news/growing-places-round-2-call-for-expressions-of-interest-open   

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