Year 2, Week 48

Leopold Street, Business Digital Grant, Scotland’s Towns Partnership...

Leopold Street

I’m told that Leopold Street will be closed to vehicle traffic, but not bikes or pedestrians, from Monday, 15th April until Wednesday 17th April while BT dig up the road.

Transport Scotland hasn’t let me know but judging by the signs on the A96 this will also affect traffic on King Street at around the same time - I suspect with traffic lights or stop/go boards.

Business Digital Grant

In the last financial year the Business Digital Grant from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund helped 160 local businesses across the council area with financial support totalling £570,000. There’s now another round of funding to help Highland companies access digital support alongside other business growth support.

The grants are designed to help businesses with their digital transformation, allowing them to better adapt to the demands of the rapidly evolving digital landscape and enhancing their competitiveness, improve customer experience, and upskilling employees providing growth opportunities.

To take an example in the last round the Inverness Coffee Roasting Co used the grant to invest in new hardware to improve efficiency and accuracy in dispatching coffee ordered from their new Shopify website.

Demand for grant support is expected to be high, so if your firm is interested you should contact the Business Gateway Highland team who provide specialist start-up and growth advisory support and full details on grant and loan support.

Scotland’s Towns Partnership

Scotland’s Towns Partnership (STP) is Scotland’s national towns collective; representing and promoting the diversity of our towns and places, and supporting those organisations and groups that have an interest in or ownership of them.

They regularly produce a Funding Finder and I’ve just put online the March 2024 edition. It provides 87 pages of details and links to funding streams available to charities, community councils, church or community organisations, and voluntary groups who need money for projects.

STP update this document regularly so if you’re involved with an organisation which is or may be looking for funding then you may want to join STP (which does cost) or just subscribe to their mailing list (which is free).

Planning applications

No new applications have been logged since I last posted.