Bradford council have given out £6m to commercial companies in loans a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

The Bradford Telegraph and Argus report:

Bradford Bulls is one of only three businesses in the city to be given a commercial loan from Bradford Council, which confirmed it has lent companies more than £6 million of taxpayers’ money over the last four years.

Responding to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the authority confirmed it had negotiated commercial loans with a total of £6.35 million with three firms in the district between 2009 and 2013, with interest rates of between 2.5 per cent and 22.2 per cent.

It refused to reveal the amount of each individual loan, or who it had been made to, but the Telegraph & Argus last month reported how the Bulls had been granted a £200,000 commercial loan, which must be paid back with interest.

You can read the full story here.

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.