A Bradford businessman and community champion who has worked tirelessly for the less privileged during the pandemic has accused the city’s council of turning it’s back on him when he found himself requiring financial help.
Business owner, Abdul Satar, of Bradford based Office Furniture Yorkshire Ltd, a Bradford based online furniture company said that due to being self-employed, and working online, he missed out on the initial government grants to help businesses with the Covid crisis.
Last August Bradford Council announced that it had widened the scope of its latest round of applications for the government backed £6.8m Discretionary Grant Fund for businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. This allocation was much smaller than the previous £137 million pot the government provided for earlier Covid 19 grants.
Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, Portfolio Holder for Regeneration, Planning and Transport, said at the time: “This new scheme is designed to help those who have missed out on previous Covid 19 government grants and to ensure the more limited allocation is distributed fairly and equitably.
Speaking in June Mr Ross-Shaw said: “We have already paid over £111 million to 9,991 local businesses under the Small Business Grant Fund or the Retail, Leisure and Hospitality Fund and are doing everything we can to fight for and support local firms through this extremely difficult period.
“We welcome this funding but don’t expect it to meet the demands of all local businesses.”
Mr Satar said that he was made aware of the second round of discretionary grants and chose to apply for a share of these funds, especially as business had been quiet.
This second round of funding included small manufacturers, suppliers to the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, enterprise centres and local charities and childcare providers who have not received a business support grant. Crucial for Mr Satar this round of funding was expanded to include applications from home-based businesses, just like Office Furniture Yorkshire Ltd.
Payments of up to £10,000 were made available to small businesses with under 50 staff that were not eligible for other current Covid 19 business grants. The businesses must have fixed costs related to business premises and show a significant fall in income due to the coronavirus crisis.
Having applied for this second round of funding Mr Satar claimed Bradford Council refused his application. He said: “I strongly believe they have an agenda of not paying me this grant as I have sent them the full paperwork required which they have lost.”
Responding to Mr Satar’s allegations the Strategic Director for the Department of Place for Bradford Council, Jason Longhurst said: “Officers have worked with Mr Satar since last September to help him to satisfy the requirements of the Discretionary Grant Fund, which delivered support to businesses impacted by last year’s first national lockdown.”
Mr Longhurst added: “We understand that providing the necessary documentary evidence to support grant applications can be time consuming and complicated, however, as this is public money it is important we carefully make all the checks to ensure applicants meet the grant criteria and the government’s assurance requirements.”
He added: “Unfortunately, Mr Satar has not been able to supply key documents in order to validate his claim for the grant. This has included business bank statements for periods in 2020 and 2019 as well as evidence of fixed property costs associated with the business.”
However, Mr Satar disputes the councils claims. He said: “I have then sent a letter from my accountants and a letter from Companies House to prove I am trading and now they want me to send all the paperwork again.”
Acknowledging that he was withdrawing from the application process a frustrated Mr Satar said: “I have a feeling they have lost my paperwork again and this is causing me a lot of stress so I have decided I will no longer be pursuing this application any further as my health is more important.”
In recognising there had been technical issues with the application process Mr Longhurst said: “At one stage large digital documents caused some IT problems, however, we did receive and store all the evidence Mr Satar submitted.”
Asian Standard has seen the email correspondence by Mr Abdul Satar, and can confirm that the relevant paperwork was supplied, and Mr Satar is a trading business.
Throughout the pandemic Mr Satar worked tirelessly to help the homeless, running a food kitchen and providing food packs for those isolating during Covid. Through his charity the Bradford Community Kitchen based at the Millside Centre on Bradford’s Grattan Road he helped serve a three-course meal every Sunday to between 70 and 110 service users.
The charity currently does not receive any government or local authority funding and is run solely on donations from the local community, friends, and colleagues. In explaining their work, the charity said they efforts are directed towards “a mixture of people who are homeless, living below the poverty line or working and managing to pay their rent but who are then unable to heat their homes or feed themselves.”
During the month of Ramadan, Mr Satar also helped raise more than £155,000 for the Akab Blind school in Pakistan by selling cakes. Now he needs the council’s help, he says they have turned their back on him.
In explaining the council’s position, Mr Longhurst said: “Documentary evidence is requested from all applicants and enables officers to verify that businesses were trading prior to March 2020 and had suffered a significant reduction in income when compared with the previous year. Documentary evidence is also required to establish the level of fixed property costs incurred by businesses which was used to calculate the value of the grant payable.”
“The Discretionary Grant Fund closed in September last year having paid out over £6.9m to local eligible businesses who had supplied the correct evidence.
He went on to say: “Although the scheme has now closed, we will continue to work with Mr Satar to try and determine his business’s eligibility for the grant.”
Mr Satar said: “I would like to make this strong point that our council and especially the Department of Place for Bradford Council are very unprofessional in the service they provide to the businesses in Bradford.”
