The funding is from the Scottish Government’s Coronavirus Business Support Fund, which is being managed locally by Scottish Borders Council’s Business Gateway service.

The council has received more than a thousand applications from Scottish Borders businesses. The council understands the pressures that businesses face and is processing these applications as quickly as possible.

The fund provides one-off small business support grants of £10,000 or £25,000. The £10,000 grant is available to ratepayers of businesses located in a non-domestic property, with a rateable value of less than £18,000, which are:

• In receipt of the Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS)
• In receipt of Rural Relief
• Eligible for SBBS, but in receipt of Nursery Relief or Disabled Relief

The £25,000 one-off grant is available to the ratepayers of businesses in the retail, hospitality, leisure sectors operating in a premises with a rateable value of £18,001 or up to £50,999.

Tracey Logan, chief executive of Scottish Borders Council, said: “We have been inundated with applications for funding support since the scheme was launched.

“A dedicated team of staff is working as quickly as possible to process the applications and make the funding available to businesses, with the first 148 being made this week. Going forward we aim to turn around payments for successful applications within 10 days of receiving a fully completed application. It is important that businesses include all of the information required on the form in order for the council to process it.

“Hopefully this funding will go some way to protecting local jobs, preventing businesses from closing and supporting the economic recovery of the Scottish Borders at the appropriate time.”

She added: “The council is working closely and in collaboration with partners, including the new South of Scotland Enterprise, to ensure that local businesses and employees are supported during this unprecedented time.

“This also includes the launch of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal’s online job matching service in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“This will match live vacancies with job seekers who have registered for alerts, with immediate job opportunities across the City Region, including here in the Borders, in essential and sudden-growth sectors, including the NHS, supermarkets, home deliveries, take-away food and beverages.

“I’d encourage local businesses and job seekers to make use of this new service.”

Professor Russel Griggs OBE, chair of the new South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE), commented: “It is great that payments are starting to be made to eligible businesses from this specific fund to help them get through this difficult time. I would like to commend all the staff who are working extremely hard to prioritise processing such high numbers of applications and payments.

“At SOSE we are continuing to have productive discussions with both councils at Borders and Dumfries and Galloway as well as with other partners to develop plans at how we can potentially add support and resources during this difficult time.

“We recognise the scale of the challenge is one which needs everyone pulling together to work as one collective team to support businesses and communities in the most effective way to get through this.”

Read all of our articles relating to COVID-19 here.