Council honoured for supporting small local businesses
Gloucester City Council has been highly commended by The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) for their support to small businesses in the city.
The FSB honoured Gloucester City Council with ‘Highly Commended’ in the Best Small Business Friendly Support Programme category.
This recognised the programme that Gloucester City Council established to help and advise small and micro businesses in their area.
The programme launched in February 2017, with the city council committing £62,000 for small businesses to access. Business owners came from various sectors and with their own unique proposals for funding. They included business rent support, paid classes for training courses, and business rates relief. Through the programme, the council has been able to encourage more start up businesses into the city, and helped a number of new start-ups to move into permanent premises.
They have supported established entrepreneurs to make the next step to grow – all of which has created more jobs in the city and filled a number of long-term empty sites.
The presentation took place at Gloucester Rugby Club on Friday 30 November and included Councils from Gloucestershire and the West of England.
Cllr Paul James, leader of Gloucester City Council, said: “We are delighted to receive this honour for our commitment to supporting local small businesses. We will continue to work with business owners and enhance our reputation for creating a constructive, supportive environment for entrepreneurs.”
Sam Holliday the FSB Development Manager for Gloucestershire and the West of England said: “We were really pleased with the success of this and we were delighted that Gloucester City Council entered with such enthusiasm. The FSB judges all agreed that Gloucester thoroughly deserved their Highly Commended award for the efforts they have shown to support the city’s small businesses and that backing has certainly helped in a city that is a hotbed of entrepreneurial spirit.
“We can all see that Gloucester is going through some massive changes at the moment and it is vital that the small business community is at the heart of that to ensure the city remains a great one to set up and grow innovative, varied businesses of all shapes, sizes and sectors. We look forward to working with Gloucester City Council in the future to help make that happen.”
The FSB are experts in business and offer members a wide range of vital business services including advice, financial expertise, support and a powerful voice in Government. Their aim is to help smaller business achieve their ambitions.