Improvements made to the Department for Enterprise's Town & Village Regeneration Scheme

The Department for Enterprise has announced improvements to its Town and Village Regeneration Scheme in a bid to stimulate economic activity in the Island's towns and villages.

A key part of the 'Our Island' work stream, one of the six work streams within the Isle of Man Government's Economic Recovery Programme, is to improve the infrastructure of the Isle of Man. These enhancements to the Scheme aim to encourage and accelerate improvements to commercial and community premises and provide support to local authorities to improve public infrastructure on the Island, while stimulating the local construction sector.

The Scheme, which originally launched in 2009, has invested over £13.4 million into 223 regeneration projects and contributed significant improvements to the Island's retail centres such as Strand Street in Douglas and Parliament Street in Ramsey.

Due to its initial success, the Scheme was relaunched in 2019 and has since supported a further 14 regeneration projects to date, to a value of almost £100,000.

The 2020 Scheme improvements see an additional £1m of funding being made available by the Economic Recovery Group to allow for increased financial support, greater flexibility and the opportunity for more businesses to apply.

The three key changes to the Scheme are summarised below:

• The requirement for businesses to be located within a designated 'Regeneration Area' has been removed. Therefore, all commercial premises directly accessible from the public highway are now eligible (whether it is a business, charity or local authority) in all areas across the Island;
• Eligible applicants can receive a grant capped at £25,000 per project, increased from £10,000; and
• Local businesses can receive up to 50% of funding towards their project, with local authorities now being able to claim up to 80%.

These Scheme changes will run for one year, reverting back to its initial offering of 50% of funding to both businesses and local authorities capped at £10,000 after October 2021.

Laurence Skelly MHK, Minister for Enterprise, commented:

'Investing in regenerative initiatives is a key part in supporting businesses, stimulating sectors and transforming our Island as we look to the future to a post-COVID world. We are confident that these new improvements will be beneficial in the long term, allowing our local businesses and authorities to thrive and creating an Island that is attractive to both our residents and visitors, when we can once again welcome them to our shores.'

Organisations interested in applying for the Scheme are encouraged to read the guidelines and eligibility criteria which can be found at: https://www.iomdfenterprise.im/tvrs