Cumbria Growth Fund

Cumbria Growth Fund does what it says on the tin. It helps businesses grow.

The fund was set up in summer 2015 after Cumbria Chamber of Commerce took part in a national competitive process to secure £4 million from the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy through the Regional Growth Fund (RGF).

Cumbria Growth Fund has supported 44 businesses with £3.8m of grant funding, helping to create or safeguard 539 jobs and leveraging £24m of private sector investment.

Manufacturing businesses – and those in services to manufacturing – have been able to apply for grants of between £10,000 and £1 million to support growth and competitiveness, and access wrap around support to help maximise the benefits of their investment.

This has allowed many more businesses to benefit from the Regional Growth Fund than would otherwise been the case as a £1 million minimum grant threshold for direct applications meant that many projects were simply not big enough to qualify.

The demand for the scheme meant that the funding could have been allocated several times over and demonstrates how this and similar schemes can have a real impact.