Small businesses and the tourism sector across Devon, Plymouth, Somerset and Torbay are among those who can benefit from the Growth Support Kickstart Grant Scheme offering grants of up to £3,000.
Application forms for the grant are available on the Growth Support Kickstart Grant website from noon on Tuesday 1 September.
It follows the recent government announcement of a £10 million national investment to kickstart the tourism economy and a £20 million national investment to support small business to get going again and recover from the impacts of COVID-19.
A Westcountry public relations company has been bucking the national business trend since coronavirus hit the economy. Devon-based RAW Food & Drink PR has not only expanded its client base during the lockdown, it has even reversed the much-publicised flow out of London and opened an office in the city.
At a time when a great many London-based companies are closing their doors, RAW founder Hayley Reynolds believes her company’s business model and ethos has helped its business to grow.
“We were operating under what’s now known as the ‘new normal’ before the phrase was...
With the sun shining and tourists out in full force, the team at The Drifting Bear Co , an award-winning, local creative business, will open their first bricks and mortar shop, ROAM, in Teignmouth on Monday 24th August.
While the doors to the Northumberland Place shop were set to open on Easter weekend, COVID-19 had other ideas. Not ready to give up on their dreams, the company founders, who won the notonthehighsteet.com Make Awards for “Start-up Success’ in 2012, have worked tirelessly to make their vision a reality.
Selling a stunning selection of products from their...
Following from the success of the “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme, Exeter office company Offices.co.uk is asking the Government to give free lunches to all office workers to encourage them to return to work with the “Lunch is on us” Campaign.
“Exeter is struggling; cafes and sandwich shops empty, trains and buses underused – we want the Government to incentivise their use by providing lunch and travel vouchers. It’s not dissimilar to the Eat Out scheme, and just as important, possibly more so”, explains Jonathan Ratcliffe from Exeter Office company Offices.co.uk
Research is underway to understand how effective SMEs in the South West have been at using technology during the pandemic.
Exeter-based IT and support company, Timewade are running an online survey to understand successes and challenges, to feed back to the business community.
Already, some of the initial findings are providing invaluable insight, with just 16% saying their technology was fully prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic. Those taking the survey, which runs through the summer, will be the first to receive the full findings.
With the impact of Covid-19 businesses, whether large or small, client facing or otherwise, need to heed the government’s wide ranging ever changing guidance and assess risk.
The one thing most businesses have in common is that they are employers. The overarching duty of every employer is to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all its employees and to consider the risk to third parties. A large part of that duty is maintained by demonstrating due diligence and by putting in place measures to maintain workers and third parties safety. The pandemic has made managing this...
Software Solved is proud to announce that it has hit its £3m turnover target under the leadership of Managing Director and STEMM ambassador, Lindsay Lucas, who celebrates one year in the position.
Software Solved is an Exeter business with a UK-wide reach and in the last year Lindsay and the Software Solved team have implemented major changes across the business in order to hit the £3m turnover target.
This included, working to establish the values and purpose of the organisation, re-evaluating services to ensure they remain current, expanding the team and skills across...
City Council Leader Phil Bialyk has welcomed people back into the city as a number of restaurants and bars open up for the first time since ‘lockdown’.
But the Leader has urged people to be sensible and vigilant in an attempt to stop a second wave, as well as be patient, as some businesses are not ready to open.
The City Council has been at the heart of work to ensure the city centre returns to some form of normality following the pandemic.
The Council has been working with partners in the public and private sector as part of a City Centre Recovery Group which...
Amazon and Enterprise Nation, the small business support network, are launching the Amazon Small Business Accelerator, a major support package for more than 200,000 small businesses and startups across the UK. The Amazon Delivery Station in Exeter is encouraging businesses across Devon to sign up for the free programme.
In response to COVID-19 and the impact of the economic lockdown on small businesses, the Amazon Small Business Accelerator will launch with a free online training programme to help 200,000 businesses at every stage. From today, businesses can take a quick online...
The UK’s number one gift-card exchange platform, Exeter-based Cardyard, has used the COVID-19 crisis to push ahead on major changes to support near-instant delivery, consumer safety, and less handling of plastic cards.
The company, that buys and sells second-user giftcards at discounted rates, has now launched their service so supplies of physical plastic cards are switched into digital vouchers for use online and in-store when trading gift cards online
This was a planned upgrade for 2021/2, and the safety implications for handling plastic (where COVID-19 virus may...
