At its June Council Meeting last night, Central Goldfields Shire Council resolved to sign up to the Small Business Friendly Council initiative which will see a Small Business Friendly Charter introduced.
The Small Business Friendly Council initiative has been developed by the Victorian Small Business Commission and commits Council to implementing several actions within 12 months of signing.
The Small Business Friendly Charter will help implement several actions in the recently adopted Economic Development Strategy and support the local business community recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Charter aims to create a fair and competitive trading environment for small businesses and commits Council to:
- pay small businesses within 30 days of invoicing
- streamline the approval process when starting a business
- help set up and support local business networks
- support local businesses in managing the impacts of infrastructure projects.
Central Goldfields Shire Chief Administrator Noel Harvey said Council was committed to doing what it can to support local businesses through the impact of the pandemic.
"I'm pleased to say that many of commitments of the Charter are already in place – a more frequent cycle of payments was introduced as part of our COVID-19 Financial Support Measures in March and as recently as last week we announced the Better Approvals program to streamline our approval process.
"Further to this we will continue to work with the Committee for Maryborough to develop pro-active ways to support our local businesses through the pandemic. Regular communication to our business database of over 500 local businesses will continue as well as the work that is being done through our Economic Response and Recovery Taskforce.
"This work will be a focus for our Economic Development team during the 12 month Charter implementation period and I'm looking forward to see how this work can continue to support local economic recovery and future small business growth within our community."
