With the government advising social distancing and encouraging everyone to stay at home unless they are a key worker, the impacts of the coronavirus have already begun to take effect.
Dorset LEP has launched a Business Impact Survey this week, to try to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on Dorset’s business community.
In the past few weeks, the Local Enterprise Partnership’s business supports function has seen a large increase in local business inquiries.
On one day, they saw 1.5 times more enquiries than they would normally receive in a month.
Some of the main challenges business have been encountering include accessing financial support through government grants and loans, the new Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and changes to statutory sick pay.
Lorna Carver, Director of Dorset LEP said: “At this extremely difficult time we want to make sure that businesses, their employees and the self-employed, have access to the full range of information and support on offer to help them.”
She continued, “The additional resources we have invested into the Dorset Gateway service is one of what may be a number of measures above and beyond those introduced by the government that we introduce to help Dorset’s businesses manage and recover from this current crisis.”
Businesses can complete this survey here, or if you need one-to-one support for your business, you can call Dorset Gateway on 01202 714800.
For more information, you can visit Dorset LEP’s website.