£250,000 Brexit funding for Peterborough and Cambridgeshire businesses to prepare for EU departure

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority board is expected next Wednesday to allocate £272,727 of funding it has received from the Government for Brexit preparations.

The money is “designed to improve business resilience across the region and partially address the concerns raised by all businesses”, a combined authority report states.

Funding will be spent on three schemes:

. Marketing and delivery of Brexit Basics workshops covering aspects of Brexit that businesses are finding challenging, for example import and export documentation knowledge. It is anticipated that more than 500 businesses will benefit from this activity over a 12 month period.

. Focusing on retention and recruitment of EU workers to “curtail the current drain of that valuable workforce”. It will also seek to “encourage the take up of settled status whilst promoting the recruitment and better use of skilled and qualified labour amongst that group of individuals”.

. Financially supporting the senior responsible officer (designated Brexit lead) to “further increase the level of resilience support available to businesses” with the appointment of staff for a one year, fixed term contract with the option to extend.

The Government has so far allocated £77 million of funding to local areas to prepare for Brexit, the combined authority said.

The UK is due to leave the EU at 11pm on October 31.