Three grants aimed at helping businesses improve Spalding town centre have officially launched.
Financial incentives are being offered to businesses that either relocate to Spalding, want to improve their frontage or for landlords to create accommodation above retail units.
There’s £625,000 being allocated as part of the Spalding Pride in Place programme funded by the Spalding Neighbourhood Board and being delivered by South Holland District Council.
The ‘Relocate’ grant offers up to £30,000 to help a business move to vacant buildings in Spalding Town Centre.
It can be used on interior or exterior works.
The ‘Refresh’ grant is being delivered in partnership with Spalding Business Improvement District and offers up to £5,000 to support retail businesses to improve the design and quality of their shop displays, supported by dedicated technical advice’.
Finally the ‘Revitalise’ grant is for up to £50,00 to convert unused upper floors in Spalding town centre in to accommodation. Landlords could also claim up to £30,000 for reconfiguring existing retail units ‘to offer space to meet different business needs’.
The leader of South Holland District Council, Coun Nick Worth, says Spalding ‘is not too bad’ when compared with other towns he’s been to recently.
“I think there’ six units currently vacant,” he said. “The problem with many of these is the size.
“People say they want a Primark or stores likes that, but many of these chains have specific floor space needs that the vacant stores in the town centre don’t meet.
“That’s the big difference between Springfields and the town centre, it can even knock two shops together if they have to.
“We can still attract other businesses to the town centre though and hopefully the Relocate grant will help persuade businesses into those unit.”
On turning more town centre spaces above shops into residential units, Coun Worth said: “It’s hard to tell looking at them but there’s lots of space above many of the shops.
“This is a real opportunity to make some of that space residential.
“What we’re trying to do is increase foot fall in the town and it should also provide a quite a big boost to the night time economy as well.”
He also said that alongside the ‘Refresh’ grants to improve shops the council was looking to offer advice which he hoped would create ‘a bit of uniformity so the town should look a lot better’.
A drop-in session for businesses looking to apply for grants will take place on Monday, November 9 ,at SHDC’s Priory Road offices from 9am to 5pm.
To book a slot email [email protected]
