SOME 500 businesses have been started under an enterprise benefit scheme.

The New Enterprise Allowance scheme launched in 2011 by the government to provide financial support and mentoring for local business people.

A total of 3,750 people have been accepted onto the scheme in Surrey and Sussex with a quarter of those in Brighton and Hove.

Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce has been working with the Let’s Do Business group to administer the scheme.

As a result of the initiative there have been 500 business starts in the city with 265 confirmed as reaching and trading beyond six months.

To date the chamber has recruited more than 70 volunteer mentors but is looking for more to keep up with demand.

James McDonald, director of Silver Fox Imaging, said: “I had fantastic support from the NEA coaching sessions and from my mentor, Barbara Aston, who I'm eternally grateful to for showing me the joy of spreadsheets.

“The shared energy and enthusiasm is really easy to under-estimate."

Mentor Emma Haughton, a coach and creative consultant, said: “NEA mentees are starting out, on their own, often for the first time as self-employed and often after difficult periods of unemployment so the support of a mentor can be an important and timely gift: a space to explore their plans, without criticism, to feel listened to and understood and to learn from what we as mentors already know and have learned through our own experience.

“It is a fantastic scheme that can provide a good balance between the hard stuff - skills, knowledge - and soft stuff - encouragement, confidence and motivation.”

Between 2013 and 2014 570 new enterprises were started in Brighton and Hove, bringing the total to 11,635.

The number of enterprises in Sussex has gone up by 2,235, according the latest Barclays and BGF Entrepreneurs Index.