Surrey farmers able to bid for funding to aid growth

Farmers in parts of Surrey can now apply for grants from Surrey County Council to help boost growth.Funding of up to £120,000 is available to help farmers in the districts of Tandridge, Guildford and Waverley.The grants will aim to support ideas like opening farm shops, generating sustainable energy and "developing agritourism", the council suggests."As committed custodians of much of Surrey's fantastic countryside, farmers play a key role in everyone's way of life," said councillor Matt Furniss.
A total of £360,000 is available from the government's Rural England Prosperity Fund for 2025/26.The council is calling it a "competitive process" and says it will "focus on supporting a small number of large-scale, high-impact projects".Applications can be made on the Business Surrey website and closes at the end of June.Surrey-wide farmers and landowners can also apply for separate Business Growth Grants from the Surrey Economic Growth Fund, which are open until the end of May.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

40 minutes ago

• Daily Mail​

Angela Rayner's workers Bill 'is a wrecking ball for the UK economy' that could wipe out struggling businesses, Tories warn

British businesses have been urged to rise up and fight Angela Rayner 's crippling new labour laws, amid dire warnings of the devastating effects they will wreak on the economy. Conservatives have sent an open letter to company bosses this weekend urging them to speak out against the Deputy Prime Minister's radical plans – or be 'sleepwalked into disaster'. Ms Rayner has been accused of taking a 'wrecking ball to the economy' with her Employment Rights Bill – which has also been dubbed 'the Unemployment Bill' over fears it will deter firms from taking on staff. The proposals, currently being debated in the Lords and due to take effect later this year, will make it more burdensome to employ workers and will leave businesses vulnerable to ruinous strikes. Central to the plans are the repeal of Tory trade union laws which will reduce the threshold for strike action and make union funding of the Labour Party automatic. But it also contains a raft of other measures, including the end of zero-hours contracts, strengthened redundancy rights, more flexible working and the power for ministers to take companies to employment tribunals on behalf of employees even if they do not want to sue. The Bill has led to tensions in the Cabinet, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves trying to dilute the measures as she battles to revive a moribund economy. Asked by The Mail on Sunday this weekend if she was working to limit the economic damage which Ms Rayner's measures are expected to cause, the Chancellor did not deny she was trying to mitigate the effects, saying: 'We talk all the time to businesses.' In the open letter, Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith says he has been moved to act because he is 'genuinely concerned that British businesses are being sleepwalked into disaster' and the Tories cannot oppose it alone In the open letter, Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith says he has been moved to act because he is 'genuinely concerned that British businesses are being sleepwalked into disaster' and the Tories cannot oppose it alone. He writes: 'We need more voices to persuade the Government to listen. The Government's own calculations – which many consider to be an underestimate – say this will cost British businesses £5 billion a year and the economy 50,000 jobs... This is not good for the economy. I know it and every business I speak to around the country knows it. 'I urge you to please share this letter with others, seek advice on the impact of the Bill from your professional advisor and encourage business groups to speak up clearly on your behalf.' Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Griffith said: 'The economy badly needs the growth that only business can create. Yet Labour's Bill for Unemployment is a trade union charter that will increase strikes, slash jobs and raise prices. 'Going back to 1970s-style domination by the unions is the very last thing Britain needs right now and shows just how little this socialist government understands business. Angela Rayner is taking a wrecking ball to the UK economy.' He was echoed by a chorus of leading business figures, including Lord Karan Bilimoria, founder of Cobra beer and UK chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce. He said: 'Making it easier for workers to strike will inevitably increase their number and frequency. This is like the 1970s, and look where that got us. We were called the sick man of Europe. 'We don't want to go back in time. Of course, you want fair employee rights, but there's got to be a balance. If you create the environment this bill is putting us on the path towards, it's going to be very damaging to business and our economy.' He called on the Government to 'think twice' before pushing ahead with the reforms. Luke Johnson, entrepreneur and former chairman of Pizza Express, said: 'At a time when unemployment is rising, the economy is weak and the number of failing businesses is on the increase, introducing a new swathe of burdensome regulations is, to me, little short of madness. 'In the 1970s our country was going broke and we had to go to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. 'It feels as if we are headed back towards that period. I lived through that time. But a lot of the MPs writing and supporting this bill are too young to remember what it was like. '[Angela Rayner] doesn't even speak the same language as people who work in the private sector. She has no clue what it's like to build a business and have your house on the line if you go broke, or struggling to pay wage bills and bank loan repayments each month. 'She just doesn't care. She only ever talks to people in the public sector, civil servants and trade unionists. But eventually, their ideology is going to collide with reality and unfortunately, they are going to drag the economy into a serious recession.' Alex Veitch, of the British Chambers of Commerce said: 'There remains a high risk of unintended consequences that could limit employment opportunities and economic growth.' And Luiza Gomes, from the British Retail Consortium, said: 'Maintaining a 50 per cent threshold for strikes is important to ensure ballot results legitimately and accurately reflect the consensus amongst workers, rather than the minority view.' A Labour spokesman said: 'The public will see right through the sheer hypocrisy of a party that crashed the economy and family finances now opposing better rights for workers. 'Labour do not think it's fair for workers to be sacked without any good reason or denied sick pay from the first day they are ill. The Tories and Reform need to explain why they do. 'These measures are developed with business, and good for workers and the economy.'

Times

40 minutes ago

• Times

Chinese mega-embassy to be approved within weeks

A new Chinese super-embassy has been recommended for approval by the Planning Inspectorate, a decision expected to be waved through by the housing secretary, Angela Rayner, within weeks. The plans for the embassy in central London had been blocked amid warnings from British intelligence about its location and the espionage risk, but were revived after personal lobbying from President Xi. The Planning Inspectorate, an executive agency of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is understood to have given the scheme the green light in a report which landed on Rayner's desk just under a fortnight ago. It follows a 12-day public inquiry in February. The decision, which is expected to be formally rubberstamped by Rayner before September, is likely to trigger a judicial review process.

Times

43 minutes ago

• Times

Is it game over for Britain's challenger banks?

Ever since Gordon Brown unleashed Sir Donald Cruickshank to review the competitiveness of the banking sector in 1998, the dominance of the 'big four' banks has been on the minds of Britain's politicians. Brown's successor, Alistair Darling, even used the aftermath from the 2008 bailouts to proclaim the creation of new high street banks, which would take on the dominant players — Lloyds, NatWest, HSBC and Barclays — and boost competition for consumers. This sparked the rise of the 'challengers' — a mixed cohort of high-street banks, which at various times have tried to unseat the giants. Back in the 2000s, one of them, Halifax, famously insisted it would 'eat the big four's lunch'. But, after more than 25 years of effort, it seems it could be game over for challenger banks. Last week, Sabadell, the Spanish owner of TSB, stunned the City by confirming it had received potential bids for the British bank it bought ten years ago. That came just hours after reports that Metro Bank had received a takeover approach from a private equity house. • What a TSB bank sale could mean for customers It led the ratings agency Moody's to warn that consolidation in the sector would 'ease the competitive pressure on the big UK banks'. That also included the Nationwide Building Society which has bolstered its status by its £2.9 billion swoop on the challenger bank Virgin Money last year. That deal came in a year when the sector was also rocked by Coventry Building Society buying the Co-operative Bank for £780 million. Benjamin Toms, banks analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said: 'While there has been a lot of noise about trying to level the playing field with the challenger banks taking more of the market, that hasn't really happened.' So why have the challengers lost their way? And is anything coming to replace them? Statistics produced by Cruickshank in 1998 are often used to explain the uphill battle they face. He found the big four banks had a 68 per cent share of the current account market. But by 2010, their dominance had risen to 73 per cent because the early challengers themselves had to be rescued by the bigger players, particularly Halifax, which was gobbled up by Lloyds. It goes to the heart of the problem, according to Barbara Casu, professor of banking at Bayes Business School. 'It's very difficult for the challenger banks and to a certain extent the smaller building societies to compete because of the market share of the big banks,' she said. Some of the challengers did get a boost from the banking crisis, as Darling had promised. Virgin Money took on parts of the nationalised Northern Rock while the Spanish bank Santander bought bits of the troubled building societies-turned-banks Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley. The crisis also gave TSB, which was set up as the Trustee Savings Bank in 1810, a new lease on life when the European Union demanded that Lloyds spin out a new branch network in return for its taxpayer bailout. TSB was floated on the stock market in 2014 before being bought by Sabadell a year later. But some reckon they squandered the opportunity to compete. Edward Firth, banks analyst at KBW, reckoned that some of the challengers 'weren't particularly well run and made a number of strategic errors'. Metro Bank, for example, launched in 2010 as the first new bank on the high street for 100 years. But it has never recovered from an accounting crisis in 2019, which ultimately led to its rescue in 2023 by the Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal. Even after rallying last week on reports of a potential bid from Pollen Street Capital, its £850 million market value is still a fraction of the £3.5 billion it was worth at its peak. Firth also blamed regulations requiring smaller banks to hold more capital as a ratio than larger ones for holding back challengers. 'That makes it very difficult for anybody to ever challenge because you're not playing on a level field.' He said the big four's dominance in current accounts also mattered, because these accounts pay very low rates of interest — if any — and so provide these banks with a cheap way to finance their lending. One of the many reviews into the sector recommended the creation of a current account switching service to make it easier for customers to move between banks. But while the big four's share of current accounts had fallen to 64 per cent by 2022, according to the latest analysis by the Financial Conduct Authority, it was not the challengers who benefited. Instead, it was the digital banks such as Monzo and Starling that gained market share, from about 1 per cent in 2018 to 8 per cent by 2022. This seems to be the result of customers opening additional current accounts, as the FCA found that the number of accounts had increased by 15 per cent over four years. On average, each adult in the UK now has 1.9 current accounts. Casu at Bayes said this also reflected the dominance of the big four: 'People have not shifted entirely to challenger banks. They use them as e-wallets, to travel on the Tube or buy online, but they don't put their whole salary in there.' The big four have also staged a fightback by spending billions on their own apps. At the same time, they have cut costs, particularly by closing branches. Barclays, for instance, has reduced its network by a remarkable 77 per cent over six years. The digital banks still outcompete the big four when it comes to customer service. The Chase app — the retail banking arm of JP Morgan, America's biggest bank — is the highest rated of any of the banks for customer service. Karim Haji, head of financial services at KPMG, said it was important not to see competition in the narrow terms of the traditional challengers. There are also competitors targeting specific sectors, such as buy-to-let mortgages, payments services, and business banking. Still, the potential takeover of TSB would be a key moment in the story of the challenger banks. This week the pressure is on to find a suitor as TSB's fate is tied up in a hostile takeover of its parent Sabadell by Spanish rival BBVA. The Spanish government is scheduled to announce on Tuesday whether it will sanction the takeover of Sabadell. But if Sabadell agrees a deal for TSB it would need to be put to a shareholder vote under Spanish rules — delaying any deal. It could also scupper the BBVA takeover by altering the financial terms. Hence, the speculation in the City that news of the potential sale was fortuitous and that if any formal bid was going to be made it needed to happen quickly, with expectations that Friday is an informal deadline for any approaches. It is rumoured that the Spanish owner is seeking £2 billion for the bank but it is not clear how easy that will be to achieve. Despite speculation about bidding wars for Co-op Bank and Virgin Money last year, no rival offers emerged for those banks and TSB has been subjected to repeated takeover speculation. Analysts said that all of the big four would take a look at TSB, but Lloyds seems an unlikely bidder given it was forced to sell off TSB in the first place. NatWest has ruled itself out. Barclays, however, is known to be seeking expansion in the UK. TSB would provide a 2 per cent market share of deposit taking and mortgage lending. While any deal might trigger the need for the Competition and Markets Authority to look at the transaction, few think it would stand in the way, particularly in light of the government's pro-growth agenda. Neil Baylis, partner at the law firm CMS, said: 'If you have a story that you're basically doing something that is good for the UK economy, then you're in a better position [to do deals] that you've been in for quite some years.' Other potential bidders could come from the reinvigorated building society sector, with Yorkshire's name in the rumour mill. As it stands, Nationwide has already bolstered its position as competitor to the big four and this wave of consolidation could result in a new 'big five' or even a 'big six'. Nationwide looked at TSB and other challengers before bidding for Virgin Money last year, and that deal is still being integrated. On the day of Nationwide's results this month, when asked about further deals, chief executive Debbie Crosbie, who was made a dame this month, said she was 'super focused' on Virgin Money. 'You never say never in the future, but right now we're focused on making the most of this acquisition,' Crosbie said. Nationwide claims to have a relationship with one in three Britons after the Virgin deal and is promising a major expansion into the business banking arena, where the big four also dominate. Intriguingly, Santander is said to have expressed an interest in TSB. This has surprised some in the City given speculation that chief executive Ana Botin was looking to exit the UK market, something she was forced to deny this year. While Santander has already claimed a slot as the fifth-biggest bank in Britain since arriving on the scene with the takeover of Abbey National in 2004, it has struggled to achieve the dominance it craved. Buying TSB might edge it closer to that goal. A sign, perhaps, that the game to challenge the big four is not over yet.