A BUSINESS owner has spoken of the stress of waiting eight weeks to access grant funding - and says there are other businesses in similar dire situations.

Tavienne Bridgwater, who owns the South Side's popular Aperçu, applied to the Small Business Fund on March 25 to access a grant that would support the plant shop and its seven staff.

But, due to an administrative error, she was turned down for the lifeline support on April 24 with the council saying the shop was not registered for non domestic rates relief.

Tavienne appealed the judgement immediately but has heard nothing from Glasgow City Council since.

In the meantime, she has lost £7000 of live stock and fears that she may have to let staff go as her newer employees do not quality for the government's furlough scheme.

The business owner said: "Obviously all retail businesses were forced to close and that was quite scary for everyone but we deal in live stock, so that made things slightly more urgent for us.

"We thought of giving some of the plants away but couldn't encourage the public to come out when the message was stay home and our shutters don't allow natural light into the premises.

"We had to let the stock die, which was very difficult.

"If we had the grant sooner we could have remained in some form and prevailed to some degree but we worried that if we didn't get the funding by May then the damage would be irreparable."

Glasgow Times:

Glasgow City Council has had to deal with thousands of applications, working to a very tight timescale, and says 90 per cent of these are now complete.

But Tavienne's application was rejected because the council could not find Aperçu listed on the non domestic rates relief list, which is crucial for a business to be eligible to apply for a grant.

Tavienne, though, says she has never been asked to pay non domestic rates for the Pollokshaws Road business and has an email from the council confirming this.

Tavienne added: "The people in the Covid-19 team are working so hard, and we fully appreciate that, but what is difficult is the lack of clarity.

"We are so grateful that this money has been made available and that we have the opportunity to apply for it and we are so thankful for the businesses we know that have received their grants.

"But we also know there are other businesses in our position, not only those who are tricky cases like ours, who are having problems accessing the funding.

"Not knowing if and when we are getting it had been so stressful for us and for our staff."

The Glasgow Times was told that Aperçu's application was being processed for payment yesterday but by the time we went to press, Tavienne had not received confirmation from the council.

Tavienne added: "We don't think we are struggling more than anyone else but we are trying to protect jobs that a lot of smaller business cannot do and a lot of larger businesses choose not to do.

"We just need to know either way."

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: "We do appreciate the concern that businesses have while waiting on the news of a decision on their applications for support, but Glasgow has received considerably more of these than any other local authority in Scotland and has now processed around 90 per cent of these."