Agency plans £23m business start-up support

Date: 11th December 2008

Business start-ups have been promised a £23 million package of public sector support from a major development agency.

The funding comes in addition to the £150 million the London Development Agency (LDA) has already provided in business and skills support this year.

Included in the proposals are access to finance schemes and a number of business recovery programmes, which aim to inform the capital's business start-up community of all the support currently available to them.

Harvey McGrath, chair of the LDA, commented: "By investing public money in support programmes that will help businesses survive … London Development Agency is at the forefront of maintaining London's economic success."

He added that the agency was fully aware of the challenges faced by business start-ups and was making their future the LDA's top priority.

At the start of this week, the Federation of Small Businesses revealed that about a third of small businesses were still having trouble accessing credit.