Over 30 Camborne businesses receive financial boost before Christmas

Camborne Town Deal celebrates ongoing success of Project A-Void and encourages businesses to submit applications soon

Camborne Town Deal  is celebrating the success of Project A-Void, a scheme which will transform the appearance of Camborne town centre. Over £140,000 of funding has been granted within the first ten weeks of the scheme, giving both established and new Camborne businesses the opportunity to improve the high street with important repairs and renovations.

More than two-thirds of the money available has now been allocated to almost 40 businesses, employing over 100 people locally. Any Camborne businesses in the town centre boundary yet to submit their application are encouraged to apply as soon as possible – the applications are being considered on a first come first served basis.

All money must be spent by March 2021, and this is a rare opportunity for commercial properties in the high street area to receive non-repayable funds.

Anna Pascoe, Chair of the Board of Camborne Town Deal, said: “The interest in Project A-Void is growing with each passing week. We are seeing more and more applications flooding in from business owners and tenants, all looking to make important improvements to their properties.

“We are delighted to be able to help so many Camborne businesses, and it will be exciting to see the effect this has on our town centre. If any businesses out there are still thinking about applying, we’d encourage you to do this ASAP. When the money’s gone, it’s gone – and we want to be able to make sure as many businesses benefit from this funding as possible.”

Local businesses can apply for a refurbishment grant and will know the outcome of their application within four weeks. The average grant award currently stands at £3,750.  Project A-Void grants are open to owners of existing businesses, as well as to local entrepreneurs planning to open a new business who need support with refurbishment costs to make their plan a reality.

The scheme is being funded from a pot of accelerator funds released by central government as part of their £3.6billion Towns Fund Deal. There is a project budget of over £220,000 in total available, earmarked for the refurbishment of existing commercial properties and the delivery of streetscape improvements.

Some businesses have chosen to add the funding grant to their own money, in order to undertake larger scale projects – with £165,000 in matched private funding also being committed by the applicants.

The project is being run and managed by Camborne BID, and any potential applicants are invited to get in touch by contacting [email protected] to express their interest in the scheme.

Camborne Town Deal received over 900 responses from local residents and businesses in response to a survey canvassing for opinions about what was needed to make Camborne a better place to live and work – and a key theme emerging from this feedback was the need to improve the appearance of the town centre.

Project A-Void was set up in direct response to this community feedback. The grant application pack can be found here:

https://cambornetowndeal.com/project-a-void-business-improvement-grant-application-pack/

Camborne Town Deal Board was formed this summer to identify and implement projects in the town that will help build a prosperous future through innovative regeneration. As one of 100 towns throughout the UK to be selected for the Government’s Towns Fund Deal, Camborne now has the opportunity to bid for up to £25million of funding, and the Board will submit this bid in January 2021.

£750,000 of advance funding was awarded to the Town Deal in an announcement earlier this year, allowing work to start immediately on some regeneration projects. Project A-Void is funded from this accelerator funding.