Sacha Lord – I didn’t mislead Arts Council over grant, but mistakes were made

Club and concert promoter Sacha Lord claims he did nothing wrong in his dealings with the Arts Council over a £400,000 grant. 

At the start of a breakfast event in Manchester with law firm Slater Heelis yesterday he was asked to address the “elephant in the room” by Channel 5 News Presenter Claire Hannah and he said: “They’ve come out and said, there was no misleading whatsoever. It was mistakes.”

He nodded along to background commentary presented to him by Hannah which covered the events leading up to his resignation as Andy Burnham’s Night Time Economy Adviser in January.

She said: “So the Arts Council investigated the application after allegations of misuse, and there was no evidence of misuse of public money.”

He replied: “Twice. Investigated twice.”

She continued: “They investigated in 2022 then the most recent investigation at the start of this year? And that is when the Arts Council withdrew that funding. So that is going back to the Arts Council?”

He replied: “Yes, yeah”.

She adds: “the company was liquidated in 2023.”

She then asks, “did you knowingly mislead the Arts Council?”

Lord said “no”.

When asked if he personally benefited he also said: “I never took wages from that company. I never took dividends from the company. And as you said, I was a minority shareholder.”

When asked how the storm over the grant affected him, Lord added: “But I’ll be honest, the impact was tough, the media intrusion on my wife during that whole period, that during that nine month period, she was heavily pregnant, and a couple of times I came back and I found her crying, and that was really the reason why I said, I’m going to step out of this for a period of time, because it wasn’t fair on her.”

Though few media outlets beyond Manchester Mill and theBusinessDesk.com covered the story of the grant application by one of his companies last summer, the insurgent media brand was successful in amplifying the story.

Though the rest of the interview covered a lively retelling of the stories in his book Tales from the Dance Floor, ranging from his founding of events like The Warehouse Project and Parklife Festival, to his pivotal role as Chair of the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), he also expressed disappointment with the Labour Party’s lack of support for the hospitality sector.

He said he is still a Labour Party member but is no longer donating due to their lack of support for the hospitality sector which he said has delivered a “double cliff edge” for the hospitality industry with increases to National Insurance and “business rates”.

He says he felt “hoodwinked” by Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ claims of being the “Chancellor of business and growth”, as he sees no growth in the sector currently.

“I was at the manifesto launch last year and I tweeted ‘This is the party of business. This is the party growth. This is the party that you need to support if you’re in hospitality.’ And that was the worst tweet I’ve ever done,” he said.

This clash with Labour also constrained him in his role as Greater Manchester’s night-time economy advisor, as he couldn’t fully voice his criticisms of the Labour government’s policies as it would rebound on Andy Burnham.

“So I’m starting to realise, actually, I can speak a lot freer now that I’m not in that role.”