Covid relief funds of around £3m are to be handed to hundreds of firms with high levels of unpaid business rates and to 38 other companies who failed to apply to the scheme. Bolton Council said 'take up has been low' for the Covid-19 Additional Relief Fund (CARF), a business rates relief fund of £5,697,827 which the authority received from central government earlier this year.
The scheme is currently application based but presently awards totalling just £2,620,263 have been made (46 per cent of the funding) to eligible firms.
The remaining £3,077,564 will need to be returned to the Treasury if it is not distributed to Bolton businesses by the September 30 this year.
A meeting a Bolton Council's cabinet agreed to proposals to ditch the application aspect of the scheme distribute the remaining cash to firms who have not applied for relief but who they believe are eligible for financial support under the scheme criteria.
