Todmorden News

Council Support For Calderdale Businesses

Calderdale councillors have voted to give a £100,000 boost to the area’s businesses. Members of Calderdale Council’s Cabinet voted to allocate the extra money from the Economic Fighting Fund to the Business Improvement Grant Initiative when they met on Monday (August 2nd).

The Business Improvement Grant project was approved by the Economic Task Force in April last year with funding of £300,000.

Grants have been available to help businesses grow or retain staff through improvements to existing premises or to help with new buildings.

Calderdale Council’s Leader, Cllr Janet Battye, says the grants have been extremely successful in helping to:

• Create 116 new jobs
• Safeguard 629 existing jobs
• Create five new businesses
• Generate of a further £1.63million investment from the private sector

Cabinet Member, Economy and Environment, Cllr Barry Collins, says the extra £100,000 will provide a much-needed boost for local businesses at a difficult time.

“We have to do what we can to help businesses ride out the recession so that Calderdale’s economy will be well positioned to benefit when the economy picks up.

“Every pound we spend now to help local businesses is going towards safeguarding existing jobs or creating new ones.”