Green Shoots Fund: Grants scheme creates 123 jobs
More than £1 million has been handed out to businesses creating 123 jobs thanks to a Shropshire Star-backed grants scheme.
Nineteen companies have benefited from the Green Shoots Plus scheme run by the Star in conjunction with sister paper the Express and Star and the University of Wolverhampton.
A further £1.2m is in the process of being agreed and £2m is still up for grabs. So far 42 jobs have been protected, supporting £3.34m of private sector investment.
The univeristy's deputy vice chancellor, Professor Ian Oakes, said: "We are delighted to act as the conduit to allocate this government funding into the region for small companies to become competitive and grow and create jobs and benefit the people of the Black Country, Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire."
Among the Shropshire companies to have benefited from the fund is TCL Packaging in Telford, which was awarded £50,000 towards a £180,000 project to limit solvent emissions from its Stafford Park factory.
Another beneficiary was The 3D Measurement Company Ltd in Worfield, which received a £33,000 grant to help install a temperature-controlled automated measuring cell to allow it to expand its revenues.
Applicants can seek a grant worth between £10,000 and £150,000 to cover up to 30 per cent of the costs of their plans for job creation and expansion.
The project, administered by the University of Wolverhampton and overseen by a panel of expert business leaders, uses money from the Government's Regional Growth Fund. Green Shoots Plus aims to create and safeguard more than 370 jobs at small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across the regionShropshire, Telford & Wrekin, the Black Country, Stafford, South Staffordshire and Herefordshire.
The fund is aimed at businesses working in advanced manufacturing, building technologies, transport technologies, including aerospace, environmental technologies or business to business services, such as accountancy, design and print, electrical, advertising or marketing.
Applicants need to have been turned down by their banks for the required funding and not to have had more than £175,000 in public funding in the past three years.
Green Shoots Plus is a bigger and wider-ranging successor to the pioneering Green Shoots Fund, which has distributed more than £1m in grants to 35 businesses.
Apply at wolverhamptonbsc.com/greenshoots, or on (01902) 321272.
