Wiltshire Council has paid £183m to businesses in the county to help them through the pandemic.

The news comes as the government’s Covid grant support schemes come to an end.

However hospitality firms in England affected by Omicron have received less than half of the £635 million support package promised by the government, new analysis has found.

Local authorities were entrusted to deliver the one-off grants, worth up to £6,000, for businesses in the hospitality, leisure and accommodation sectors.

Yet just £305 million of the cash distributed to 309 English councils had been paid out less than three weeks before the final cut off for applications on March 18, Altus Group’s analysis of official government data shows.

Some 29 councils had failed to distribute a single penny of the allocated grant funding to struggling firms, according to the new figures.

In total, 32,000 payments have been made to support the county’s businesses by the council since March 2020 and throughout the past two years.

This includes grants to support rate-paying businesses, non-rate paying businesses, hospitality and leisure grants, retail grants, discretionary grants and much more – all to support Wiltshire businesses through this challenging time.

Councillor Richard Clewer, leader of the council and cabinet member for economic development, said: “The pandemic has been a difficult time for us all, and many Wiltshire businesses have found it particularly challenging as they deal with lockdowns, the constant uncertainty, and the subsequent drops in trade, while doing their best to keep their staff and customers safe.

“We’ve always said that we’ll do all we can to support businesses during the pandemic, and we have done so, issuing many thousands of grants totalling £183m to Wiltshire businesses, along with campaigns to encourage people to support local businesses, free parking for some periods and rate relief for eligible businesses."

Cllr Clewer added that he would like to thank all the council officers who have "worked so hard on business grants during the past two years".

He added: "Issuing this many grants, while carefully following eligibility guidelines for several different schemes, gathering the necessary evidence and responding to many thousands of queries, is no small undertaking, particularly as we tended to find out about the national updates at the same time as everyone else.

“We had to bring in staff from across the organisation to support the huge effort of administering and paying the grants, and they have all done a fantastic job under extremely difficult and challenging circumstances."

The council added that it would continue to support businesses to help them recover as the county continues to move out of the pandemic.