Rural Business Grants of up to £4,999

Rural Business Grants of up to £4,999

Capital grants up to a maximum of 50% grant rate are available to existing micro-enterprises based in a rural area to support them to recover, sustain or grow through DAERA’s Tackling Rural Poverty and Social Isolation (TRPSI) Programme.

Grant aid of between £500 - £4,999 is available for projects costing up to £20,000.

What can I apply for?

Grant aid is available to support the purchase of new capital items of equipment or machinery or to set up an e-commerce website that cost at least £1,000 and no more than £20,000.

Examples of eligible expenditure includes:

• Computer equipment e.g. computer laptop, printer.
• Computer software (outright purchase, ongoing license fees not eligible).
• E-commerce Websites to allow online purchase capabilities.
• New equipment/ machinery.
• Mobile machinery, such as scissor lifts, forklifts, ride-on lawn mowers.
• Covid-19 business recovery equipment, including free-standing screens and hand sanitiser units (the hand sanitiser is not eligible).

Please note: the maximum number of items, or groupings of items, that you can purchase under the scheme is six.

Is my Business Based in a Rural Area?

Rural areas are those areas with less than 5,000 residents and outside of designated urban areas. The scheme cannot support businesses based in the urban towns of Ballymena, Larne, or Carrickfergus, nor within the Mid and East Antrim Urban Area.

If you’re unsure if your business location is eligible, contact T: 028 25633266 or E. rdp@midandeastantrim.gov.uk

Programme Successes

To date there has been four successful tranches:

• In 2019, 14 applicant’s received Letters of Offer totalling £45,041.
• In 2020, 33 applicant’s received Letters of Offer totalling £105,203.
• In 2021, 38 applicant’s received Letters of Offer totalling £78,185.
• In 2022, 33 applicant’s received Letters of Offer totalling £94,028.

Overall this totals £322,457 of grant funding that has been distributed to rural businesses based within Mid and East Antrim.

How do I apply?

The online system is currently closed to new applications but we do anticipate that it will open again in Spring 2023. 

How can I find out more about the Grant funding?

To register your interest for any future programmes you can contact us by:

T. 028 25633266  or E: rdp@midandeastantrim.gov.uk

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Privacy Notice

We are collecting and processing your personal information for the purposes of processing an application under the Tackling Rural Poverty & Rural Isolation (TRPSI) Programme which involves sharing your information with third parties. This is in accordance with 6(1)(e) of the GDPR - the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Council. Information collected may be shared with, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and Invest Northern Ireland.

Information will not be transferred to countries outside the EEA. All information collected and processed may be subject to audit. Council may also process the information for research purposes carried out in the public interest.

All information will be processed and held in line with our overall Privacy Notice which can be found on our Privacy Notice page.

You have a number of rights with regard to data we hold on you – for further information see the Information Commissioner’s website.

If at any point you believe the information we process on you is incorrect you can request to see this information and even have it corrected or deleted. If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter:

Data Protection Officer
The Braid
1-29 Bridge Street
Ballymena
BT43 5EJ

E: DPO@midandeastantrim.gov.uk

If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).