In summary
The Government has announced that business support funding will continue to be delivered through local councils for the next year until March 2025. This means that local councils will be continuing to run schemes including targeted business growth initiatives, mentoring, events, and in some cases, grants. Please ensure that you’re signed up to your local council’s business newsletters and following them on social media to take advantage of what they have on offer.
Featured news and events
The Government has announced that business support funding will continue to be delivered through local councils for the next year until March 2026. This means that local councils will be continuing to run schemes including targeted business growth initiatives, mentoring, events, and in some cases, grants. Please ensure that you’re signed up to your local council’s business newsletters and following them on social media to take advantage of what they have on offer.
Leicestershire Innovation Festival Returns in March
LIF returns for its 7th year in 2025. The festival is an annual celebration of ideas and improvements which drive increased productivity among businesses operating in Leicester and Leicestershire. Founded by the Business Gateway Growth Hub in 2018, LIF brings together public, private, and education partners as hosts of a number events across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. LIF25 runs from 31 March to 4 April 2025. Follow #LIF25 and find the events here.
Business Networking at The Farm
After September’s Autumn event at Mini Meadows Farm where we enjoyed fabulous breakfast catering, networking, a talk on social media and enjoyed a sightly muddy walk meeting pigs, Alpacas and donkeys, we’re heading back for Spring!
Please join us at the farm on Friday 28 March, for another productive morning.
Join us for:
- Informal networkingSmall Business news and updates from FSB
- Business introductions
- Guest speaker session to learn something new for your business
- Breakfast rolls and refreshments
In other news
Celebrate Success and Grow Your Network at the Nachural Awards – East Midlands
The Nachural Awards in the East Midlands are more than just an awards ceremony — they’re a powerful platform to celebrate business excellence, foster connections, and inspire growth. The event takes place on April 11th at the Athena in Leicester City.
Attending the Nachural Awards puts you in the room with some of the region’s most influential business leaders, innovators, and changemakers. It’s a chance to raise your company’s profile, share your achievements, and create meaningful relationships that can open doors to future opportunities.
FSB is supporting the Nachural Awards for 2025, if you would like to be nominated by the FSB, please send the team your details and a brief bio about you and your business to [email protected]
Invest to Grow Funding for East Midlands Businesses
The Invest to Grow programme offers £15,000 – £250,000 in grants and loans to help businesses innovate, expand and create jobs. Delivered by the University of Derby for businesses across the region, projects with a minimum cost of £50k+ can access funding between £15k-£250k. More information is here.
Funding News
Business support grant for businesses in the Melton BID. Through the scheme you may be eligible for up to £250 in funding to help you undertake small scale improvement works to your premises and digital support, including new websites, online ordering platforms etc. The application form can be found here.
Oadby and Wigston Borough Council Shop Front Improvement Scheme
The Oadby and Wigston Borough Council Shop Front Improvement scheme is aimed at businesses in the borough to make improvements to their shop fronts. Grants of up to £2,000 are available, to be matched by the applicant, for several improvements. This project is being funded by the UK Government through its Shared Prosperity Funding.
Up to £10,000 of grant funding to support North Northamptonshire businesses to help increase energy efficiency, move to a low carbon economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The grants cover up to 50% of the project costs for the installation of low carbon and energy efficient measures with the remaining amount to be match funded by the business.
Further grants information can be found on your local council website, as well as through your local Growth Hubs for Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland.
Rutland business summit returns
This annual event takes place on Wednesday 19 March 2025, at The Barnsdale Hotel in Rutland for a day of networking, learning, and engagement with the Council. Book a place here.
Still in the news
Leicestershire Innovation Festival 2025 launch event: Breaking the spell - AI + innovation
This event is being held at The National Space Centre in the heart of Space City with breakfast, networking and a seminar on the introduction of AI for business, exploring the barriers to adoption and how to trust your innovative mindset ending in a Q&A session on 31 March 2025.
The festival will run throughout the rest of the week featuring a number of events.
Ashby Connect Business Networking- the FSB Edition
If you’re an FSB member attending Ashby Connect on Wednesday 26 March, we’d like to hear from you, and invite you to take part in our presentation, a popular free networking lunch in Ashby-de-la-Zouche. We’re delighted to be the official supporter for the March event, and who better to outline why FSB is a good organisation to have your back, than our own members! Please get in touch with us and we hope to see you there.
FSB creates Webinars for Immigrants and Refugees
Area Development Manager, Jennifer Thomas, was delighted to put together two webinars to support Immigrants and Refugees coming to the UK, to understand the business ecosystem grants and funded business support and Business Networking. These have been translated into a range of languages by the Spring Educational Society and are being loaded onto YouTube. Please feel free to share these with anyone you know who could benefit. Links to the English language versions below:
Businesses boosted at packed Bootcamp
Over 100 business owners took part in the FSB Business Bootcamp at The Woodlands at Hothorpe Hall in January, with attendees reporting that business growth, efficiencies and strategy were high on their agenda for the year ahead.
With workshops on business foundations, lead generation and creating a saleable business, attendees worked on ensuring that their small businesses were resilient, competitive and able to scale or sell. We hope to see you at a future bootcamp happening across the Midlands soon!
More news and activity near you
Get in touch
Your FSB Development Manager for Leicestershire, Northamptonshire & Rutland is Jennifer Thomas. If you'd like more information about the topics above, or if you have news about this area that you'd like to share, please get in touch.
- email us: [email protected]
- follow us on x: @FSB_L_N_R
- follow us on Facebook: FSB.LeicsNorthantsRutland
- connect with me on LinkedIn: Jennifer Thomas