Theresa May is encouraging local entrepreneurs to take advantage of the Government’s Start-Up Loans schemes. The Start-Up Loans scheme is a government-funded initiative that provides start-up support in the form of a repayable loan together with a business mentor for entrepreneurs across the country. So far, 10,000 loans have been awarded to entrepreneurs worth a total of £50 million.
Start-Up Loans are designed to go some way to help solve the problem of supporting people who have a feasible business idea but no access to finance. With finance and mentoring available to entrepreneurs, the scheme is helping to support small businesses and aims to help 30,000 new businesses by 2015.
Despite the good progress made, Theresa is keen to see greater take-up in the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead. So far, five Start-Up Loans have been made to entrepreneurs in the Royal Borough but this is lower than other local authorities in the South East and in other similarly-sized areas across the country. Theresa has written to the Royal Borough and the Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to encourage greater awareness of the scheme in the local area.
Commenting, Theresa said: “People wanting to set up a new business can often find it hard to get a loan. We need to support entrepreneurs and small businesses and ensure that good business ideas don’t go to waste. It is great that the Government’s Start-Up Loans scheme is supporting so many entrepreneurs across the country, and I hope we can see even greater take-up in Maidenhead to ensure that local people are not missing out.”
For more information on Start-Up Loans see www.startuploans.co.uk
