What Was/Is Business Link?
Business Link was an English business advice service, billed as a ‘One Stop Shop’ for business. It was supported by a network of regional business advisers that helped support startups and businesses at various stages of development.
For those that remember it, it was a valuable service to those businesses that used it, akin to a local business bank manager in a bank – remember those days?
However, as you can tell by my past tense, Business Link was axed in 2011 and was never really replaced directly, unless you count the first DirectGov initiative, which was an all-encompassing website that was designed to take over every part of the disparate online government services. Thankfully, this was replaced with a much better version, which is now Gov.uk. Unfortunately, Gov.uk doesn’t provide anywhere near the level of support (physical or online) that Business Link once did, but that’s not really its purpose.
What Replaced Business Link?
Since shutting down, the support that Business Link offered has been replaced by various government services, grants, EU funding schemes, and commercially supported schemes over the years. Unfortunately this means that getting business support is now much more complex and fragmented than just going to one umbrella organisation.
A List of Business Support Organisations
So I’ve compiled a list of supporting organisations and websites below, that are more along the official lines of support. Their usefulness and help, invariably, will vary!
Local Enterprise ‘Growth Hubs’
‘Growth Hubs’ are local public and private sector partnerships run by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in England.
- Black Country
- Buckinghamshire
- Cambridgeshire & Peterborough
- Cheshire & Warrington
- Coast to Capital
- Cornwall and Isles of Scilly
- Coventry and Warwickshire
- Cumbria
- Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
- Dorset
- Enterprise M3
- GFirst
- Greater Birmingham & Solihull
- Greater Lincolnshire
- Greater Manchester
- Heart of the South West
- Hertfordshire
- Humber
- Lancashire
- Leeds City Region
- Leicester & Leicestershire
- Liverpool City Region
- London
- New Anglia
- North East
- Oxfordshire
- Sheffield City Region
- Solent
- South East
- South East Midlands
- Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
- Swindon and Wiltshire
- Tees Valley
- Thames Valley Berkshire
- The Marches
- West of England
- Worcestershire
- York and North Yorkshire
Business Support Helplines
England Business Support Helpline
enquiries@businesssupporthelpline.org
Telephone: 0800 998 1098
Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm
Scotland Business Support
Telephone: 0300 303 0660
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm
Wales Business Helpline
Telephone: 0300 060 3000
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm
Northern Ireland Invest
Telephone: 0800 181 4422
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm