A £5m growth fund has been made available to help small and medium sized (SME) businesses in the Solent region.

The Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) announced the funding package, made available through the Solent Growth Fund, at its annual conference held last week.

It will provide two destinct funding streams – £3.2m Capital Investment Fund and £1.8m Small Business Programme, which has been supported with a £1m investment from the European Regional Development Fund.

The Small Business Programme will provide either revenue or capital based funding of between £10,000 and £75,000 to individual SMEs, and the Capital Investment Fund will support SMEs with projects requiring a higher level of capital investment, up to £500,000 per project.

A range of funding options are available, including grants, loans, forward funding and equity investments.

Around 250 delegates attended the LEP's conference to hear details of the new funding opportunities directly, and to begin the conversation on a new Strategic Economic Plan for the area in the coming year.

Gary Jeffries, Solent LEP chairman, said: "We have today published our Productivity and Growth Strategy Update, setting out some of our early investment priorities.

"However, this is only the start of our work with Solent businesses to develop our response to the Governments Industrial Strategy Green Paper against a context of significant change, including the emerging new relationship with Europe and revised local vision for our area and economy. 2017 looks set to be a critical year for the LEP and it was fantastic to see so many local stakeholders join our annual conference to help begin this work.

"I am looking forward to discussing the key opportunities and challenges for Solent Businesses in greater detail across a series of roundtable sessions in the coming months and would encourage all Solent businesses to get involved in this work to help us build a better future."

Brian Johnson, Solent LEP Board Director and Small Business Ambassador, said: "SME businesses are absolutely critical to the fortunes of the Solent economy as a whole. Supporting new SMEs to begin trading and helping our established, innovative, small business community to grow quickly is a key priority for the Solent LEP in 2017 and I am delighted to be able to launch our largest and most varied provision of SME funding support to date.

"Over the last five years, the LEP has provided funding to more than 170 SMEs and I am confident that we can build on this success by supporting at least 80 more businesses with the new £5m programme."

To support the development of the new Productivity and Growth Supplement, Solent LEP commissioned Oxford Economics to independently outline the area’s recent economic performance, as well as provide latest forecasts for the LEP area u[ to 2036.

The report predicts weaker rates of net inward migration into the area as a result of the Brexit which will mean that working age population will fall.

Employment growth is expected to to be flat up to 2020, reflecting regional and national trends, before accelerating from 2020 and growing in-line with the UK with almost 50,000 additional jobs created by 2036. Administration and support services; professional, scientific and technical activities; and human health and social work activities are expected to account for two-thirds of thenew jobs.

Details on how to apply for funding through the Solent Growth Fund are available here.

The first deadline for SME funding applications is March 3. To find out more visit solentlep.org.uk/growing_places/solent_growth_fund.