Exclusive: Did Sacha Lord cheat his way to £400,000 of public money during the pandemic?

The Mill has obtained a funding application that makes a series of highly misleading claims about the nature of his business

Dear Millers — today’s story raises serious questions about Sacha Lord, one of Greater Manchester’s most prominent business figures and a close advisor to Andy Burnham.

The Mill has obtained evidence that a security company controlled by Lord repeatedly lied in an application for Covid-19 support. As a result of the misleading application, the company then received over £400,000 of taxpayers’ money at the height of the pandemic.

We have seen a copy of the funding application, in which Lord’s business makes a series of false claims about what it does, calling itself “the backbone of the national creative events sector”.

Mark Turnbull, a former director of the company, has told us on the record that he believes Lord’s company is guilty of fraud and should be investigated by the police. “It’s a disgrace,” Turnbull told The Mill, questioning whether his former business partner should be allowed to continue as Greater Manchester’s nighttime economy advisor.

A spokesperson for Lord says that the version of the application seen by The Mill, which was released under the Freedom of Information Act and is redacted in places, does not accurately reflect what the company submitted. The spokesperson says the Arts Council requested information about the application in late 2022 and was "satisfied with the evidence provided". Lord chose not to answer our detailed questions about the application. 

This story is a members-only piece. This kind of journalism – digging into the financial workings of the city’s most influential players – involves proper investigative work and costly legal fees, and we fund those costs via subscriptions. If you’re not a member yet, you can get a 7-day free trial to read today’s edition, and we hope you’ll stick around for our updates next week. 

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Exclusive: Sacha Lord made his name during the pandemic. But did he lie to get government support?

By Jack Dulhanty and Joshi Herrmann

In January 2021, Sacha Lord was at the peak of his powers. The nighttime economy advisor to mayor Andy Burnham had become a powerful voice for the UK hospitality industry: taking the government to task – and even taking it to court – over its rules governing pubs and restaurants during the pandemic. On social media, Lord’s viral posts about the rights and wrongs of the UK’s Covid-19 response were ever-present. 

Lord, the multi-millionaire founder of the Warehouse Project and Parklife — currently on the publicity trail for his memoir Tales from the Dancefloor — was batting for the little guy: the freelancers, the community pubs and theatres, all of which, he said, weren’t getting enough support. “The government has stabbed the hospitality sector in the back,” he told TalkTV at the end of 2020.

When support was made available, Lord was quick to point it out. In July 2020, the government announced a giant fund to support the cultural sector and Lord tweeted to his army of followers: “Need help applying for the £1.57 Billion Arts Council Recovery Fund?”, with a link to a seminar run by the Night Time Industry Association guiding institutions through the process. 

Sacha Lord, illustrated by Jake Greenhalgh.

The Recovery Fund was designed to help culturally important organisations survive lockdowns and reopen once restrictions were lifted. One of Lord’s companies, the Warehouse Project, applied to the first round of grants and received £340,381, according to Arts Council filings. 

That made sense: the Warehouse Project had become an institution in the city. But then, when the second round of grants opened for applications in January 2021, another one of Lord’s businesses applied: Primary Event Solutions, a company that, until a few months before, was called Primary Security.