Growth grants for Westmorland and Furness businesses

Sixty eight Westmorland and Furness businesses are to share a £771,000 funding pot to help them to grow their business, with 19 of these already having completed their projects.

Individual grants of up to £20,000, to meet up to half of the costs of their projects from a two stranded programme – Catalysing Growth and Investing in Growth. Catalysing Growth funded revenue investment to help businesses to access new markets, with Investing in Growth funding capital investments to improve productivity and innovation.

E-Bike Safaris Ltd, in Kendal, say that their Investing in Growth grant of £13,000 has matched funded the purchase of 10 new e-Bikes and navigation devices. It is helping them to expand their business across the central and southern Lakes by offering new multi-day and single day cycle tours. This is in addition to their electric bike rental services.

Businesses completing Catalysing Growth projects include Apple Designs Ltd, near Carnforth, which specialise in marketplace management and digital marketing. They help businesses sell or market their goods on online platforms like Zalando, Aboutyou and Amazon. Thanks to a grant of £7,500, towards their project costs of £15,117, they have been able to connect their ecommerce platforms with new European marketplaces.

Bartletts Group Limited, Dalton-in-Furness, used their Catalysing Growth grant of £7,500 to invest in a rebranding project costing £15,220. Bartletts provide a very specialised service, in a highly regulated industry, protecting equipment and machinery in marine environments from erosion and corrosion. They say a stronger branding image should help them to win more contracts.

Bartletts also benefitted from an Investing in Growth grant of £20,000 to meet 40% of the cost of buying a JCB TLT35/230 Teletruk. Purchased locally, they say it will help them to win higher-value contracts from the marine industry, whilst growing the business and increasing productivity and safety.

Another Investing in Growth grant was made to First For E Players Limited (trading as EStars) near Penrith. EStars invested their grant of £20,000 in a project with a total cost of £55,000 to develop an educational esports platform for students to use. It has attracted global attention, and is being launched in Nigeria this July, at an event hosted by the British Deputy High Commissioner. Mags Byrne from the EStars said: “Developing the Platform has enabled EStars to grow, create more jobs and to further our reach, globally.”