Small businesses are shut out of 'vacant rooms' grants

Small businesses are being shut out of a grant aimed at turning vacant rooms over shops into homes, a West Cork councillor has warned.

Independent councillor Finbarr Harrington raised the issue at a recent meeting of Cork County Council’s Western Divisional Committee.

He said the rules exclude businesses and companies from applying, even though many of the buildings targeted by the scheme are owned through small family companies.

He called on Cork County Council to press the Department of Housing to change the rules.

“Buildings over shops, by their nature, are owned by companies or businesses,” Cllr Harrington told the meeting.

He said the restriction rules out many vacant properties in West Cork’s towns and villages which could otherwise be brought back into use. Cllr Harrington said the exclusion may have been intended to prevent large companies from securing the funding, but it was also affecting small traders.

“Even sole traders operate under a limited company, so therefore they’re excluded from that grant,” 

he said.

He added that many family-owned shops and other small businesses hold their properties in company names, leaving them unable to apply for funding to renovate the vacant accommodation overhead.

“I think we have a lot of those in West Cork,” he said.

“I think the biggest portion of those buildings are owned by those types of people in West Cork. If we could lean on the Department to relook at that, I think it would benefit the vacant properties side of it in West Cork big time.”

A council official confirmed that businesses cannot currently apply for the grant. The meeting was told that the Department had indicated it may consider extending the scheme to micro-companies in the future. For now, it is restricted to individuals and sole traders.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.