Anglia Indoor Karting in Ipswich was knocked off track by Covid, but is now gearing up to reopen with extended facilities after receiving support from the LEP’s Business Resilience and Recovery Scheme.
The company applied for funding after the pandemic forced it to close and was awarded £50,000 from the initiative, which was launched in 2020 to support short-term business resilience projects and longer-term recovery and diversification projects. In July 2019, the business received £40,000 via the LEP’s Small Grant Scheme, which is also administered by New Anglia Growth Hub, investing in a new fleet of adult karts.
Director Paula Partridge said: “As a company that has survived for 30 years, we thought we had seen it all. At the end of 2019, having grown the business, we invested in an extension to the upstairs circuit and a fleet of children’s electric karts and business was going very well. Little did we know that three months later we, along with many other businesses, would be forced to close due to the pandemic. Since that time we have been closed for 10 of the 14 months.
“We applied for a grant from the LEP’s Resilience and Recovery Scheme and this has enabled us to broaden our offer by extending the upstairs circuit to accommodate adult drivers, as well as installing a Laser Maze room, giving us a second activity on offer alongside the karting.
“This widens the appeal of what we have to offer and will put us in a much stronger position to recover than where we might otherwise have been. Without this support we would have been unable to develop the business as we have.”
To find out more about the scheme, go to https://newanglia.co.uk/grant/business-resilience-and-recovery-scheme/
