Charity begins at home (I hope)

[Suzy]

I invested just over £10k last spring in my firewood business as there was no financial assiatance available. But now there is through the RDPE. You may get up to 50% grant aid if accepted. We were told we needed a business plan but they preferred one of their people to write it and would cost us £1200 (grant of 40% available!!!). In our region (cheshire) they are "keen" to help people in sustainable fuel/forestry etc with capital purcahse for "specialised machinery" etc. I asked if they would take my recent investment as my 50% so they could help me fund a kindling machine, and what do you think said........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

send in an expression of interest form.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

write a business plan.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

but we probably wont take your recent investment in to consideration,

 

complete waste of time in my books. Grant schemes like this come from central government and europe in order to keep other people in jobs. With a £5million scheme I reckon only half will actually get delivered to the people it is aimed at, the rest is consumed by those people administering it

Good luck with your new venture and hope it works out. Just don't expect too much help from people in authority

 

Hmmm. Yep, I think you are probably right. The usual Government "Jobs for the Boys" stuff. But some people get some of the money, so it seems worth a go! Firstly I need to tackle the rather complicated business plan they want ...

[davetaz]

Might as well go for it then! Good luck with the business plan - are you writing it yourself ?, let us know how you get on

[Hogs Breath]

they are more interested in job creation than anything else.you will have to write and rewrite your business plan ect i gave up in the end too much else to do!

[Quickthorn]

I'm in the process of doing something similar myself in Notts. How far have you got? Have you passed the expression of interest stage?

 

I get the feeling that you might stand more chance if you can truthfully claim that you're in farming and seeking to diversify.

 

Also, can you claim it's more than just firewood? The number of people who have got into firewood over the past year or so is truly staggering, so I'm sure there will have been plenty of those applying for grant aid, if it's the same in your area as it is here. They won't fund every budding firewood business, so if you have another string to your bow...