Bucks Biz community pulls together to combat Coronavirus challenges

Local businesses have joined forces across Milton Keynes in a variety of ways as the world unites to fight the Coronavirus.  With the local business community pulling together to ensure that we have a buoyant economy when the restrictions are lifted, the courage and creativity from many businesses across Milton Keynes has been incredible to see.  Bucks Biz, one of the City’s largest providers of serviced and manages offices, has been pulling out all the stops to help their clients keep their businesses going at the moment.  

Group Manager of Bucks Biz, Dominic Muscat said: “As landlords to over 300 businesses across Milton Keynes, we’ve done everything possible to support our clients during these uncertain times. Many have talked about the uncertainty around the funding available to support them right now. Whilst many businesses have taken the support through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough), there are still a number of financial commitments that businesses need to meet so the Business Support Scheme has been a lifeline to many businesses across Milton Keynes.”

Dominic added: “We spent much of our time since the lockdown providing Milton Keynes Council with the information they need about our clients so that we could help them to claim some much needed financial support through business grants, which will keep their businesses going.”

“Many of our clients are directors of Limited Companies and it has been well documented that this group has been purposely excluded from Furloughing themselves as it would mean qualifying the mega-rich who won’t need the support. For many of our clients, who don’t make multi-million pound profits, these business grants will mean the difference of whether they can survive these challenging times or not.” 

“Obviously, this situation is very new and the guidance is developing daily, so we’ve had to go back and forth between us and the Council with a huge spreadsheet to make sure that our clients get the grants that are so desperately needed.  From an operational perspective, we obviously had to close our reception area because of the government imposed lockdown, however we have a number of key worker businesses who run their operation from a Bucks Biz centre, so our 24 hour access buildings remain open and ensure we’re keeping the building safe with a detailed cleaning regime and secure with security patrols to make sure that our valuable keyworkers can focus on the brilliant work they are doing.”

On the plus side, there have been some incredible stories of support for the local efforts from Bucks Biz residents:

• Director of Alle Interiors and former nurse Alle Dekenah of Alle Interiors has put her business on pause whilst she returns to Milton Keynes Hospital as a Healthcare Assistant. Find out more here.
• County Rents have relocated up to 80 Families/Individuals into Emergency/Temporary Accommodation who need to self-isolate.Find out more here.
• Local manufacturer SR-TEK has offered to supply a FREE £5,000 machine to any Milton Keynes company who are making PPE equipment and masks for healthcare workers.Find out more here.