Businesses in Denbighshire are being urged to bid for a slice of a massive £1 million fund that’s just gone live.
It’s a second helping of the Prosperous Denbighshire Business Fund being distributed by regeneration agency Cadwyn Clwyd and follows an initial fund worth £1.3 million that benefited almost 100 companies across the county.
Now an extra £1 million is up for grabs in grants of up to £35,000 with the closing date for applications on Thursday, July 31.
Smaller grants of up to £2,000 are also available and Cadwyn Clwyd are expecting a similarly high level of interest this time round.
Funding from the first tranche of cash helped save a 150-year-old village chemist shop in Dyserth which has seen its business boom thanks to a computerised appointment booking system.
The solution pharmacist Ravi Kiran Palutla came up with for the Dyserth Pharmacy not only boosted his business but could hold the answer to the long waits people experience at Wales’s GP surgeries.
He developed an on-line appointment booking system which allows customers to book in-person consultations so Ravi can then prescribe medicines and treatments or, where appropriate, refer patients to a doctor’s surgery.
When Ravi took over the former Peter Morgan Pharmacy in Dyserth in 2023 it seemed he might face a fight to survive but two years later the computerised appointment system has driven customer numbers up by 44 per cent and seen appointments soar from 20 a month to 300.
The secret of his success, that computerised appointment booking system, was paid for by a £1,897 grant from the Prosperous Denbighshire Business Fund, administered by Cadwyn Clwyd, which has now re-opened for a second phase of spending.
Ravi added: “A grant of just £1,897 enabled me to update the website to make it more functional and install a computerised booking system and the difference it has made has been amazing.
“The population of the Dyserth area is about 2,000 and for me to have a viable business I need a patient base of 4,000 plus and the computerised system has allowed me to build that.
“Because the appointments are made online we don’t have the pressure of taking phone calls and making bookings so we have been able to develop new services.
“These range from treating migraines, chest and urinary infections, providing morning after contraceptive pills and giving Covid vaccines which have brought us patients from as far afield as Dolgellau and Criccieth.
“We are already doing virtual travel consultation securely via the internet. This reduces the need for the patient to travel twice to the pharmacy, once for consultation, second for vaccine administration. We will be developing a private phlebotomy business soon.
“I know health authorities in Wales are looking at what we have done and at the possibility of rolling it out across the country and it is the Prosperous Denbighshire Fund that has made all this a reality for us.
“We will be doing it at a smaller scale in Denbighshire pharmacies first which will then give us the opportunity to learn from the implementation. The learnings will be useful for the national project yet to come in the next 18 months.
Cadwyn Clwyd Business Partnership Officer Donna Hughes said: “It is remarkable the difference it has made to Ravi’s business and to access to healthcare in North Denbighshire.
“He was in the first phase of the Prosperous Denbighshire rollout which can pay up to 70 per cent of the value of a project to a maximum of £35,000 of a £50,000 scheme.
“The success of what Ravi has done just shows that this kind of funding can do wonders for a business.
“It opens up tremendous possibilities and that’s why we’re delighted to be able to offer a further £1 million in grants which also include smaller schemes of between £1,000 and £2,000.
“The first phase proved hugely popular which was shown by the number of grants we were able to make and it also shows the need and the effectiveness of this kind of support for local people to build businesses with all the benefits that has for them and the communities in which they live.”
The money comes from the Shared Prosperity Fund, administered by the UK Government, which announced in their Autumn Budget a further £900 million of funding for local investment by March 2026.
For more information contact Donna Hughes at Cadwyn Clwyd on 01490 340500, email: [email protected]
