Northumberland businesses encouraged to attend free “rural growth support” events

Businesses based in Northumberland are being urged to attend free “Business Surgery” events run by experts from Advance Northumberland’s Rural Business Growth Service.

The events will run on Tuesday July 12, and will be held at Wansbeck Workspace, Rotary Parkway, Ashington.

The free sessions will enable businesses to meet with expert business advisors to find out about what funding and support is available, discovering how the Rural Business Growth Service can help growth plans and guide businesses towards appropriate sources of finance and enable expansion and diversification for the future.

They provide an individual tailored programme of support which will be diagnosed, developed and managed by one of the Rural Enterprise Specialists. The project has been awarded over £1m to date, and still has just under £1m available for rural businesses.

Some local Northumberland based businesses to recently benefit from the project include:

• Glendale Engineering Milfield Ltd, who applied to fund plant machinery, including a 14-tonne excavator and received £42,640
• Silvermoor Ltd, invested in machinery for manufacturing and received £57,974
• Pilgrims Gelato food processing business wanted to expand to increase productivity and received £23,053
• Mousen Ltd, invested in briquette production processing plant-resulting in a £150k grant fund amount.

The North of Tyne Rural Business Growth Service 2020 - 2023 is a £7.9m programme of investment part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020, and the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

Cllr Jeff Watson, chair of Advance Northumberland, said: “We are encouraging Northumberland based businesses to take up the Rural Growth support available. I strongly recommend registering for the events.

“They provide a great opportunity to get a feel for the valuable funding support on offer, as well as to meet face-to-face with business advisors who can explain more about the programme and how it can help you to grow your business.”

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