Despite various efforts to stimulate the economy, accessing finance is still a major challenge for UK businesses, it has been claimed

According to the latest monthly survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), a third of businesses found it more difficult to access finance over the last three months. 

When asked the same question back in June, just 20% of companies said that credit was harder to come by. What’s more, the number of businesses reporting that access to finance had improved was just 3% – down from 6% in June.

However, despite this, almost two thirds of the 400 respondents agreed that a weakened demand for their products and services would be the biggest barrier to growth over the next year.

“Our latest survey results show that the biggest issue facing British businesses is still demand for products and services. This means that any economic recovery is still fragile,” said David Frost, director general of the BCC.

The BCC questioned whether stimulus measures – such as the quantitative easing programme that was recently extended to £200bn – were actually succeeding in increasing lending to small businesses.

Frost added: “It is clear that the huge sums that have been injected into the financial system by quantitative easing are still not reaching small and medium-sized businesses in anything like the scale required for business to invest for future success.

“The Pre-Budget Report on December 9 must include measures that encourage companies to invest and improve confidence. Announcing that 2011’s planned increase in National Insurance contributions will be scrapped would be a good start.”

© Crimson Business Ltd. 2009