The York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce (YNYCC) has landed £460,000 of European cash to help struggling businesses on the east coast and the upland Dales get back on their feet.

It's a big coup for the Chamber which has agreed a deal with Business Link to deliver a two-year programme of seminars and workshops to get economically battered businesses in the two regions to recognise the nature of their problems.

Stage two is to offer the firms - many of which are likely to be directly and indirectly related to tourism and agriculture - huge discounts on one-to-one counselling with private sector advisers and other experts.

Mark Vines, president of the YNYCC, is now calling on professionals in York and North Yorkshire to tender to take part in the scheme in which the Chamber will subsidise the cost of advice by a third, the adviser will discount by a third and the benefiting business will be expected to pay a third.

Mr Vines announced the deal at the annual meeting of the YNYCC at Le Meridien, York. Afterwards he said: "It will apply to firms in economically difficult areas such as the lowland Dales, the Moors and the east coast from Whitby to Scarborough.

"The seminars and workshops will give them a flavour of the problems and typical business issues that they face and that will be followed up with one-to-one support on anything from legal matters to accountancy and human resources problems.

"It's a perfect example of public-private partnership."

Members of the Chamber were welcome to apply to become advisers "but it cannot be a members-only service because this would contravene the European procurement rules."

At the same time Mr Vines announced a partnership negotiated by chief executive Len Cruddas between the YNYCC and York College to provide a joint training venture, also to be launched in September.

Updated: 11:16 Tuesday, July 15, 2003