Supporting fantastic local businesses in our city is one of our key priorities as a council and we will continue to do this through projects like our Relight Business Programme.'įSB Development Manager for Staffordshire and the West Midlands, Karen Woolley said: We did this by running a series of webinars, funded FSB and Chamber membership, carrying out financial and digital reviews as well as business diagnostics, and providing access to a grant to implement recommendations from the reviews. Following our work delivering the Covid grant support programme, we wanted to give local businesses the tools and knowledge to build resilience during the pandemic and grow as the economy opened back up. 'Our Relight Business Programme has supported around 200 sole traders, micro and small businesses. Richard Lawrence, Director of Regeneration, said: And Wolverhampton was named as the West Midlands regional champion winners with judges being impressed by the council’s work to help the local small business community by putting in place a series of measures aimed at helping small businesses to survive, revive and thrive after arguably the toughest two and half years of trading. Local authorities from all across England responded to the call when FSB launched their inaugural Local Government awards, sponsored by Maybe*, which were aimed at celebrating and recognising those that had made the biggest impact on local SMEs during the Covid crisis and beyond.

Wolverhampton was among 250 councils in England who entered the inaugural England-wide Local Government awards run by Britain’s biggest business representation group, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), and it emerged triumphant in the Future Ready regional category. City of Wolverhampton Council has just been awarded a prestigious ‘best in the region’ award for its support for the local small business community.

Shouting by Annie Lee