Sacha Lord company's withdrawn £401k grant application was 'wrong or misleading', says Arts Council

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A Covid recovery grant of more than £400,000 issued to a Sacha Lord company was withdrawn because the application was 'wrong or misleading', the Manchester Evening News can reveal.

Mr Lord resigned as Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham's night time economy advisor after the Arts Council revealed earlier today (Wednesday, January 29) it had decided to withdraw a £401,928 grant awarded in 2021.

It is now seeking to recover the cash. The Arts Council - a government-funded cultural development agency and charity which administered the Culture Recovery Fund - did not reveal in its statement any findings made against the company, of which Mr was a director and minority shareholder.

After Mr Lord claimed there had been 'no finding against the company that it deliberately misled the Arts Council in this application', a spokeswoman for the Arts Council said in a new statement the application had breached a clause in the terms and conditions that read: "You have supplied us with any information that is wrong or misleading, either by mistake or because you were trying to mislead us." In January, 2021, as Greater Manchester and the rest of the country was trying to get back on its feet after the misery of Covid, one of Mr Lord's companies Primary Event Solutions - of which he was a director and and a minority 30 per cent shareholder - made an application to the Culture Recovery Fund, a £1.57bn rescue package to help 'cultural organisations' survive following the pandemic.