Struggling business owners in Axminster can join a new workshop giving practical advice on how to battle through the pandemic.

Starting on Tuesday, June 7 between 6 pm and 7.30 pm at the Community Waffle House, the 90-minute workshop offers both personal coping mechanisms and practical advice on business planning, financing, digital strategy and marketing.

The ‘Building Resilience’ initiative comes from Axminster Chamber of Commerce in partnership with training specialists Business Information Point (BIP) and offers both personal coping mechanisms and practical advice.

The two-stage programme starts on June 7 and 14, run by experienced facilitator Adela Mei. From those sessions will then come the second stage in which participants will be guided towards specific free online workshops and will also be offered one-to-one advice sessions.

Chamber secretary Barrie Hedges said the largely independent trading base in Axminster had been particularly badly affected by recent challenges ranging from the pandemic through to spiralling costs.

He added: “We are a town of largely small businesses where the true weight of all that comes down on individual shoulders.”

"They battle on and they find new ways to survive and succeed but it has been apparent over recent months that the worry is seriously impacting on them.

“We started talking to BIP as a publicly-funded and well respected trainer and they agreed to come up with a special programme that would address both ends of this issue – the personal impacts and the need to develop new skills and ideas.”

BIP are providing this support through the ‘Thrive’ service which is fully-funded by The Heart of the South West Growth Hub Service for All, which is receiving up to £781,965 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The accountable body for this programme is Devon County Council.

Sign up to the workshops by emailing secretary@axminster.biz.