Applications are now open for the publicly-funded Covid-19 Winter Disruption Scheme.

The scheme provides additional financial support to the island’s catering, hospitality, leisure, tourism and travel, retail and lifestyle sectors.

It is hoped it will lessen the impact of reduced trading because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The scheme provides grants to businesses and self-employed persons operating in eligible sectors whose turnover has been materially hit over a three-month period since September 2021, compared with the same period in 2019 or 2020.

The financial support provided through the scheme is intended to help eligible businesses to continue trading through the winter months, covering the period December 2021 to the end of March 2022.

Eligible businesses that operate from commercial premises can claim a grant equivalent to the value of up to four times their rates bill(s) for each of their commercial premises.

Eligible businesses which do not operate from commercial premises can claim a single grant payment of up to £4,000.

To get financial support through the scheme, applicant businesses will be required to declare that they have suffered an 18.6% or more reduction (further reduced to 15% for those businesses who declare increased staff costs) in turnover downturn during a qualifying period.

The extent of this downturn can be adjusted to take into account inflation.

Applications are now open and will close on Friday, April 15.

Meanwhile, Licensed Victuallers’ Association chair Geoff Joughin told the Courier that while this last weekend before Christmas - traditionally one of the industry’s busiest each year - was only slightly less busy then normal even during the Omicron outbreak, there was still ’a hard winter’ ahead.

He added that there were fewer people out on the streets than he would have expected, saying: ’I think there was a lot of caution out there, a lot of wariness.’

Despite the past weekend having been ’pretty steady’, hospitality businesses are still expecting to be hit by the downturn in trade that many have already experienced during earlier winter months.

’Come the end of January when the bills come in for the Christmas month, that’s when there’s going to be a terrible amount of hardship,’ Mr Joughin said.

As for whether the support measures are enough, Mr Joughin pointed out that many businesses may not be able to demonstrate that 15% downturn in turnover during the three months pro, but would still have suffered financially during December.

The full guidance, including eligibility criteria and a link to apply, can be found at: https://www.iomdfenterprise.im/coronavirus/winter-disruption-scheme/

The Covid-19 Winter Disruption Scheme forms part of the new and extended measures announced by the Economic Recovery Group to support businesses over the winter period.

Potential applicants who are unsure of their eligibility are encouraged to contact the Department for Enterprise by email at [email protected] or by telephone on 687333.