Grants for businesses

This page includes information on:

• Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grants
• Additional Restrictions Grants
• Discretionary Business Rate Relief

Kingston Council has distributed over 10,500 business grants totalling totalling over £60m, to support borough businesses during the pandemic. This includes grants for:

• Businesses that were required to close
• Many businesses that were not required to close but were severely impacted by restrictions
• High streets recovery initiatives

On 21 December, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced that the Government is introducing a new grant scheme to support businesses that are experiencing difficulties because of the Omicron variant.

Additional Restrictions Grant 
Support will also be available for some of the businesses most impacted by the Omicron variant that do not qualify for the grants below (such as hospitality and leisure businesses that do not pay business rates). This scheme is being developed now and will be open for applications by the end of January.  

Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant

Eligible businesses:

The Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant scheme is to support solvent businesses that offer in-person services, where the main service and activity takes place in a fixed rate-paying premises, in the hospitality, leisure and accommodation sectors, specifically:

• Hospitality business - those whose main function is to provide a venue for the consumption and sale of food and drink. (This excludes food kiosks and businesses whose main service (generating 50% or more of income) is a takeaway, unless the takeaway service is as a result of the business adapting to offer takeaways during periods of restrictions).
• Leisure businesseses - those that provide opportunities, experiences and facilities, in particular for culture, recreation, entertainment, celebratory events and days and nights out. (This excludes gyms and sports businesses where physical exercise or training is conducted on an individual basis or group basis, and all retail businesses, coach tour operators, tour operators.)
• Accommodation businesses- those can be defined as a business whose main lodging provision is used for holiday, travel or other purposes. (This excludes private dwellings, education accommodation, residential homes, care homes, residential family centres) 

Businesses must have been trading on 30 December 2021 to be eligible to receive funding under this scheme.

The application window is now closed.

Applying for a grant does not guarantee payment will be made.  Applicants must ensure that full information is provided to ensure that checks can be made and payments made promptly.

Payments will be made to qualifying ratepayers on the following basis:

Recipients must be a solvent business, and ratepayers in the hospitality and leisure sector. For example, a pub; hotel; restaurant; bar; cinema; or amusement park.
 
You can check your rateable value on your business rate bill or on the gov.uk website.

Please be aware that the government requires new applications to be made for all of these grants, even if you have received grants before. There is no need to contact the council about this support - details will be available here and via our newsletter as soon as it is available.

Beware of scams and ‘phishing’ emails
Criminals are attempting to take advantage of these schemes. Only submit your form using the link found on this website directly - never use a third party link to get to this, or to respond to a grant ‘paid in error’.

There is no need to pay a company to submit this application for you, and doing so may expose you to risks from scammers.

If we contact you by phone we will email you first. This will enable you to verify who we are. Because the Guildhall Complex remains closed, staff checking your application will be working from home. An incoming call to your phone may show that the caller’s number is withheld because our staff will be using their personal phone. You will be asked to check your email and to quote your claim reference number.