Why rural businesses?

Small businesses are hugely valuable to the economy and rural areas provide more fuel than most. Nearly one third of all employees in rural areas work for small businesses. This is twice the proportion of those working rurally in firms with more than 250 employees.

How rural businesses perform greatly affects how the UK economy performs, with approximately 650,000 businesses employing 3.4 million people in England and Wales. Remove rural businesses from the equation and we lose £230 billion in GVA in England alone.

That’s one reason why Buckinghamshire Business First loves supporting rural businesses, along with the fact that we love supporting any business! So, here are a few ways we can help.

The LEADER programme

The LEADER programme delivers grants to small and medium-sized rural businesses, farmers wishing to diversify, tourism projects, community groups, foresters and other rural enterprises.

Grants of up to £50,000 are available in the Chilterns and Clay Vales areas, with grants of up to £100,000 available in North and West Northamptonshire. The grant scheme is open and the team welcomes applications from eligible businesses.

There are six main categories that grant funding can cover: support to increase farm productivity; support for micro and small businesses (non-agricultural) and farm diversification; support for rural tourism; provision of rural services; support for cultural and heritage activity; and support for increasing forestry productivity.

These are broad headings and the LEADER team would stress that such a wide range of projects can be funded. So the best thing to do is to contact the LEADER team to discuss if your project is eligible for funding.

Contact a member of the team via the details provided here, and visit the LEADER homepage for more information about the programme.

Visit Buckinghamshire

If you run a rural business, you will want to promote it in a place that has the maximum effect. That means you should promote your business on the Visit Buckinghamshire website.

Visit Buckinghamshire is the hub of all things tourism related in Buckinghamshire, highlighting what to do and when to do it, along with all of the shops, cafes, businesses and more that visitors and residents will love as they travel to and around our great county.

Every business within the tourism sector is eligible for a free listing on the Visit Buckinghamshire website, with greater promotional opportunities available for those who invest in a feature-rich package.

By joining the Visit Buckinghamshire family you will also stay in the loop with all of the latest news from within the Buckinghamshire tourism scene.

Find out and more and sign up for free on the Visit Buckinghamshire website >

Funding for Rural Development

Earlier this week we ran an event that highlighted the aforementioned LEADER funding, as well as DEFRA’s European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).

If you missed the event but would like to find out more about the funding opportunities open to rural businesses, you can catch up with the video of the event, which we originally streamed via Facebook Live.

Visit our Facebook page to see this video and learn about rural funding opportunities >