OxLEP – the ‘engine behind Oxfordshire’s SMEs’ – urge businesses in the county to find out what support is available to them this Oxfordshire Day

The business support team within the county’s Local Enterprise Partnership – OxLEP Business – offers a whole host of supportincluding £1.2m of grants to be issued this Autumn to eligible businesses within the visitor economy and those looking to innovate.

OxLEP is urging the county’s businesses to make the most of ‘Oxfordshire Day’ today (Wednesday 19 October) by utilising its free ‘Business Support Tool’ to find out what support could be available to themincluding funding via a grant pot totaling over £1.2m.

Operating as the ‘front door’ into OxLEP for Oxfordshire SMEs the Business Support Tool takes just seven minutes to complete and enables the team of business experts to understand each business’ needs and provide them with a bespoke Business Support Action Plan detailing local and national support that’s available including relevant events grant schemes expert advice and mentoring services.

With grant support on offer including the recently-launched Visitor Economy Grant Scheme run by OxLEP Business as part of OxLEP’s Visitor Economy Renaissance Programme – which itselfaims to back the sector’s ongoing re-emergence from Covid-19 through a variety of positive interventions – the scheme provides funds to eligible businessesranging from £5000 to £24999 per business.

Businesses who could be eligible for a visitor economy grant cover a huge range of sub-sectors from hotels to car rentals distilleries to independent retailers takeaways to passenger transport organisations.

Full eligibility criteria and information on qualifying sub-sectors along with details on how to apply are available on the OxLEP Business website.

Other grant support on offer includes the Oxfordshire Apprenticeship Grant Scheme – a product of OxLEP Skills’ Social Contract programmeoffering grants from £1000 to £3000 to eligible businesses to help remove potential barriers experienced by apprentices to start or complete their qualification – and a series of ‘Go-Create’ grants available via the ERDF-funded Innovation Support for Business programmesupporting tech and non-tech businesses to implement innovation projects.

Go-Create grants are available on a competitive basis from £5000 to £50000 per business with applications currently ongoing.

Funding for the Visitor Economy Renaissance Programme and the Social Contract Programme was secured by OxLEP via the government’s Contain Outbreak Management Fund.

SMEs can also hear more about the support available through the various OxLEP Business programmes at OxLEP’s Annual Eventset to take place at the Curzon Cinema in Oxford on 1 November.

The event will cover what’s ahead for OxLEP its programmes and the support on offer through the various teams within the organisationas well as looking back on key achievements for the Local Enterprise Partnership over the past 12 months.

Since its launch in 2011OxLEP – with partners – have secured around £1bn-worth of central government and European funds for the Oxfordshire economy. In total – OxLEP oversees a £3.3bn growth programme for Oxfordshire.

In the 18 months following the Covid-19 outbreakOxLEP engaged with 2670 businesses across Oxfordshire – with almost all of these coming through the Business Support Tool – and now OxLEP Business are determined to reach out to an even wider pool of organisations supporting even more companies to understand that they too could benefit from its business support.

Helen Brind – Growth Hub Manager at OxLEP – said: “Over the past few years we have built-up a first-class reputation of supporting businesses at both critical times in their respective growth journeys as well as during times of economic challengein particular during the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit.

“As we look ahead to our Annual Event next monthit’s true to say that we have never had such a variety of funding opportunities available to Oxfordshire businesses and we are determined to ensure as many companies as possible are aware of what is potentially available to them at such an important moment for our business community.

“We also appreciate that understanding the business support landscape and eligibility requirements for what’s on offer isn’t always easy – particularly whilst running a business – so our Business Support Tool acts as that first ‘quick and easy’ step to engaging with us so that we can make you a bespoke offer of support.”

Sign up to OxLEP’s Annual Event

Go to the Business Support Tool