The Wealden and Rother Rural Business Grants Programme is now live and open for applications.

The Rural Business Grants programme will deliver capital grants of between £2,500 and £50,000 to businesses located in rural areas of Wealden. The programme is open to small and medium sized businesses (SME’s) to apply for capital grants of up to 50% of the cost of capital projects.

The aim of the programme is to support rural businesses to grow, increase their productivity and to make other improvements to their business, such as investing in Net Zero infrastructure. Capital grant projects could include farm diversification outside of agriculture, property adaptions, creation and expansion of rural leisure and tourism businesses, new equipment, machinery and commercial vehicles.

The scheme is funded through Wealden District Council’s Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF), a 2 year capital programme which supports the aims of the government’s Levelling Up White Paper and Future Farming Programme, the funding aims to help productivity and strengthen the rural economy and rural communities. The scheme is not open to those businesses located in Bexhill, Polegate or Stone Cross. This requirement has been set by Defra.

The scheme is being delivered by East Sussex County Council on behalf of Wealden and Rother District Councils, for full details of project eligibility please view the Rural Business Grants Programme guidance and eligibility and email your interest and contact details to ruralbusinessgrants@eastsussex.gov.uk