David Draffan Covid19 Blog no8

Plymouth City Council Economic Development

David Draffan Service Director Economic Development

Covid19 Blog

No 8 - Friday 17/4/2020

Hi Everyone,

My name is David Draffan and I am the Service Director at Plymouth City Council with responsibility for Economic Development. As a department we have been wondering how to get our key messages out. It occurred to me that a more informal, human blog might be useful, in addition to our normal methods, so that I can perhaps reach a different audience; but also so that people can understand the work that is going on behind the scenes. I intend this to be regular and short rather than longwinded given the massive amount of communication currently.

This week there has been a significant shift into recovery conversations regionally and nationally. This is currently taken the form of scenario planning, given the spread of vastly different outcomes that we currently face. Most of the conversations are happening at a sector level – tourism, culture, fishing, manufacturing, construction, marine etc. – including conversations about the future funding models for local government itself. It is interesting to consider that Economic Development is a non-statutory service given how much central government is currently relying on it to support economic shock.

We still however remain firmly also focussed on the acute stage of this economic crisis and recognise that it is hard for many businesses to contemplate recovery when you can’t pay your overheads and have no income. Council Leader Tudor Evans chairs a weekly call with the Plymouth Business Community (FSB, PMG and Chamber) who ensure we are on the firmly pulse and understanding of the pain you’re all currently experiencing. Gaps in business support, bank loans and concerns about April/May payroll remain firmly issues on our agenda.

We have also been focussing this week on some of our major flagship projects such as the Box, Oceansgate, Brunel Plaza, Civic etc. to ensure that these remain ready to emerge at pace when needed. It’s been really encouraging to have some optimistic conversations.

The other big focus this week is the Council assessing the impact on its own finances. It is ironic that the Council’s response to austerity has been to become much more commercial and we are therefore in Economic Development exposed to the markets to the same degree as the private sector in many cases.

On piece of good news was that our staff member who was battling in hospital with C19 last week is now recovering at home. Just such a huge relief.

Important things

Small Grants – We have paid ￡29.9m to 2491 businesses – our target was 2474. A further 428 and ￡5.3m this week. This nearly 100% of those businesses who have applied and been accepted.

Fishing Lobbying – We had some good news today that our efforts on lobbying for fishing have been answered with a new ￡10m fund. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-financial-support-for-englands-fishing-businesses

PCC Rates deferral – If you pay by direct debit we will not be taking payment in April or May. More information can be found here:

https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/businesses/businessrates/coronaviruscovid19supportbusinesses

Plymouth City Council Emergency Planning

We remain fixed in our emergency planning routine. I am slightly in trepidation as I will be chairing Silver Command in a fortnight. It’s been strange from a health perspective that the levels of C19 in Plymouth remain low and relatively stable meaning many of the temporary facilities we have out in place have yet to be utilised. Efford Crematorium will also return to service next week after the fire we experienced on New Year’s Eve. Services will be subject to the same social distancing measures that are in place across the country. The maximum number now able to attend services is 10 people with priority given to family members.

Livewell Southwest and Plymouth City Council have been working with the New Continental Hotel to create a temporary extra care facility for people who are ready to leave hospital but need extra care support before they can get home. This means vital hospital beds can be freed up to support those who really need them. Volunteers recruited by Plymouth City Council under the Plymouth Good Neighbour Scheme who have given up their time to support others will be part of the team. The first patients moved in yesterday.

Our cleansing crews are removing debris and rubbish from the Plymouth stretch of the A38 this week. It’s essential to keep this key route clear of any potential hazards to road users and we work with Highways England to remove accumulated rubbish at regular intervals. Because the road is much quieter than usual, Highways England agreed for this to take place during the day, which is easier than working overnight.

Over the last few weeks staff across the Council have had to work very differently to respond to the impact of Covid19, often in completely new areas. A nice example is Chris a property surveyor by trade who is used to working on major city development opportunities has been supporting the Plymouth Credit Union by helping to set up a Direct Payment Debit Card Scheme. This business is a key piece of social and economic infrastructure for the City. The Credit Union provides banking facilities for clients who would not be accepted by mainstream banks.  The business response to PEE has been brilliant and whilst we do still need more we are so grateful for your response.

Recovery Planning

We have started this week to more formally consider our response to recovery by looking at a governance structure and the creation of a dedicated delivery team. Our approach will be sectoral utilising our existing partnerships. We are currently working on some detailed modelling across each sector to identify impacts, vulnerabilities and opportunities. This is in addition to work also underway at a LEP level.

Business Grants Update

We are now reaching a stage where our business grants payment will slow down; not because of any capacity issues but because we have paid out the grants that are straightforward. We have written to around 1000 businesses who haven’t yet responded. We believe there are probably 2 main issues here: 1) the businesses isn’t engaged with the wider business community and doesn’t know grants are available or don’t think they are eligible. I am concerned that many of these businesses will be in the greatest need and may also include community organisations and sports clubs. 2) Where we have the wrong information on the rating database and have therefore either sent the letter to the wrong businesses or the wrong person. This will happen if the business has changed hands during the year for example or if for whatever reason we have the wrong billing information. This may seem odd, but when you consider, that for many, having correct information on the rating list isn’t a priority because they know they are eligible for Small Business Rates Relief. These grants just happen to be paid via the rating system, they aren’t a policing mechanism for it. We have this week completed an analysis on the c 1000 businesses who remain unpaid and will be approaching them individually next week.

It is also worth mentioning there remains a significant level of loan rejections. I know of one pub where 3 people are currently trying to claim a grant. And ten out of 130 grants in one payment run this week were applied for by businesses who have long been wound up. Fraud or genuine error I wonder?!

If you are eligible for Small Business Rates Relief – i.e. your business premised is very small and you don’t pay rates – and have both received a grant then please get in touch. If you’re committing fraud you will be found out.

Full guidance here https://www.visitplymouth.co.uk/invest/business-support/covid-19/business-grants

Gaps in Business Support

The Herald did a nice story on our lobbing activity last week: https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/newsroom/pressreleases/cityorganisationscallpluggapsupportsmallbusiness Pressure is building on the government from all quarters to address more of these gaps and we remain hopeful they will be filled. Government are in no doubt now of where these gaps are.

Fishing Industry Support

As I mentioned over the past few blogs we have been working hard to support the fishing industry in Plymouth which faced a major crisis with the collapse in the fishing price. It was therefore heartening to heard of the Governmst announcement this week on a pack of support for the industry. We are still analysing details but the press announcement is as follows:

Government announces financial support for England’s fishing businesses

More than 1,000 fishing and aquaculture businesses in England will receive direct cash grants through a fisheries support scheme announced today by Environment Secretary George Eustice and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay.

• Up to ￡9 million will be available for grants to eligible fishing and aquaculture businesses. A further ￡1 million is available to support projects to assist fishermen to sell their catch in their local communities.
• Open to under-24m vessel owners with fishing licenses registered in England who recorded sales of ￡10,000 or more in 2019, calculated from the average business costs for the size of the vessel.
• Scheme will run for up to three months to help English fishing and aquaculture businesses with fixed costs such as insurance, equipment hire and port costs.
• Details in due course from the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) who will also administer the fund, contacting eligible registered owners and license holders from next week.
• The announcement encourages the seafood and fisheries sectors to apply for the COVID support offered to all businesses and is exploring with the national fisheries authorities other methods to reduce the regulatory burden on the fishing fleet.

Call 4 fish https://www.call4fish.com/

Keep supporting local fishermen and but direct. More boats are going out and the trade price is slowly rising. Our scheme in Plymouth is now being replicated nationally and more fishermen are joining locally too.

Shop4Plymouth

We (well… mainly some redeployed brilliant museum staff) have been quietly working on a platform for Plymouth businesses to promote their online responses to c19 and we plan to launch this on April 30th. It’s more than an online portal but a call for citizens’ to literally shop FOR Plymouth.

Council Press Releases

Did you know all the Council’s press releases are listed here and it’s a great way to keep in touch https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/newsroom

The Council has summarises its activity here on a revamped c19 web page https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/covid-19 . It’s rather good and worth a look.

ED Newsletter – are you signed up?

https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/economicdevelopmentplymouthcitycouncil/

Growth Hub

Did you know we have a dedicated business support service in Devon and you can speak to a trained business advisor for free? https://www.heartofswgrowthhub.co.uk/covid-19-guidance-for-business/

Share widely

Please do share this blog widely and not via the usual channels as it’s important we get the message of support and solidarity to Plymouth businesses not connected in the usual way

Feedback

If this blog is useful let me know and if it is simply more noise in the system I won’t be the slightest bit offended! I will try and do updates a few times a week as anything changes.

I hope you get some small comfort from that fact that you are not alone. There is a dedicated groups of people committed to ensuring your survival and will stop at nothing to help.

Contact

My mobile number is 07919226965 and my email is [email protected]

Please text or email any time if you think I can help – I’m a night owl and will most likely be sitting with the laptop at the kitchen table.

All the best

David