Former Wolves owner Steve Morgan pledges £1m a week to support struggling charities during coronavirus crisis

The housing tycoon will support cash-strapped charities through his Steve Morgan Foundation to help the elderly, people with disabilities and children.

The cash will support charities in Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales, amid fears usual fundraising streams will be severely disrupted due to the crisis.

Redrow founder Mr Morgan bought Wolves for a nominal £10 from Sir Jack Hayward in 2007 and remained at the helm during a rollercoaster nine years which saw the club achieve promotion to the Premier League and suffer relegation to League One.

The businessman said: “The £1m per week will go into a war chest because we are at war against coronavirus. People who know me know I don’t like the limelight but now is not the time to hide in the shadows."

The father-of-six made the decision despite seeing an estimated 50 per cent wiped off his own fortune in the past month by the economic crash caused by Covid-19 but said his own wealth wasn’t important compared to the humanitarian crisis the world was facing.

He said: “I grew up in some pretty tough areas of Liverpool and changed schools nine times but worked hard, set up Redrow and got lucky. I never forgot my roots, which is why I set up the Steve Morgan Foundation in 2001 to help people who weren’t as fortunate as me.

“The Foundation has a small team, but we support hundreds of charities in our region and it’s these charities and, more importantly, the people they help that are going to be the hardest hit by coronavirus.

“Aside from the obvious difficulties that the charities are facing, supporting thousands of disadvantaged people, this crisis has already caused substantial cashflow issues.

"Normal day-to-day fundraising efforts that the charities undertake have been pulled from under them. The London Marathon alone puts around £65m into the charitable sector.

“We’ve already had more than 50 of our supported charities approach us for desperately needed funding and we are only at the beginning of this crisis. One of our charities, in just one day, had 248 additional people register for their foodbank.

“As the economy shrinks it will be the charities and the vulnerable people who suffer first and we can’t allow that to happen.

“At times like these it’s right that people turn to our politicians to take the lead, but entrepreneurs like myself can help. We can’t stand idly by and do nothing."