Businesses in Cornwall who didn’t get all the coronavirus grant funding they requested are set to receive a top-up.

Cornwall Council has been allocated a further £4.4 million by the Government to fund the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) Scheme and began distributing it to businesses at the end of the week.

Demand for the grants outstripped available funds in January and February of this year, says the Council, and so it made the difficult decision to pay 50 percent of the total amount requested by each business, to make sure that those who applied and were eligible received some support.

At the time, the Council committed to paying those businesses more if further funds were made available, an approach that was consulted on with business representatives.

Now the extra funds, coupled with residual cash from previous funding, will be distributed to those businesses who’ve only had half their claim so far.

Businesses will now receive a total of 90 per cent of the maximum award or the amount they requested, whichever is the lower.

Cornwall Council says it has decided to pay this money now from its own funds, before the Government funding arrives, to make sure that businesses in need receive the money as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Cornish businesses eligible for the Government’s Restart Grant should have now received their payments.

The Restart Grant is a one-off grant to support eligible rate-paying businesses in reopening safely as coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

£102million has so far been distributed to more than 13,500 businesses.