Oldham Council 28 March 2018 – Leader’s Questions – Councillor Howard Sykes
Q1 Tackling Child Poverty in Oldham
Mr Mayor, for my first question tonight I want to refer to the report published last month by the campaigning coalition End Child Poverty into child poverty across the UK.
Overall the report found that Oldham was the local authority area with the 7th worst estimated prevalence of poverty in the UK. Most shockingly Coldhurst was identified as the electoral ward with the highest estimated level of child poverty in the country, with over six in ten children living in poverty.
Regrettably Werneth, St Mary’s and Alexandra also featured highly with over fifty percent of all children in poverty.
But child poverty is not simply confined to these areas – there are children living in poverty everywhere in our Borough.
Sadly, you also find pockets of economic deprivation in Shaw, Saddleworth, Chadderton and Royton – all are a criminal indictment of the indifference of policymakers and financiers in the affluent nation that is 21st century Britain.
Of course, much of the blame for the increase in poverty must be laid at the feet of a Conservative Government which continues to insist on austerity and has punished the poor with a benefit freeze.
Yet there were previously investments amounting to tens of millions directed at our most deprived neighbourhoods, Coldhurst, Glodwick, Derker, Fitton Hill, Hathershaw, Limeside, Werneth, and Westwood during previous Government’s including Labour. I will mention just four!
- The Single Regeneration Budget
- Neighbourhood Renewal Fund
- The New Deal for Communities
- Housing Market Renewal
Despite their high sounding titles, very little seems to have changed on the ground.
Mr Mayor, this Administration talks a lot about the ‘game changer’ that the redevelopment of our town centre will represent, but for the children of these neighbourhoods who are hungry or ill-shod a real ‘game changer’ would be having enough food to eat and decent shoes and clothes to wear right now.
My first question to the Leader tonight is this – does this Administration along with its partners have a practical strategy, a ‘game changer’, with real achievable, measurable targets to address the poverty, and therefore the life chances of these disadvantaged children?
This is one league table we need to get off the top of and better still Oldham needs relegated to a lower division. At least 4 wards in the top flight for poverty is not where we need to be!
If there is not such a strategy, does she not think it is about time that we put one in place as a top priority and as a cross-party priority – for I can tell her now the Liberal Democrats stand ready to help or is another generation to be condemned to poverty?
Q2 Primary Health Care
Mr Mayor, I would now like to return to another very important issue for many residents in our Borough – access to modern primary care facilities in their locality.
The NHS Clinical Commissioning Group has recently consulted on proposals to create five local ‘clusters’, each to serve approximately 50,000 patients at which local GP practices will be concentrated, along with a range of high-quality primary care services that will be tailored to the especial needs of the host community.
I am confident that patients and carers in Chadderton, Saddleworth and Shaw and Crompton will be excited to hear this news as they are currently obliged to attend health centres that are well past their best to say the least.
In fact their facilities are so poor that I would suggest that if a patient presented in such a condition they would be immediately referred for emergency treatment by triage. They are quite literally falling to bits.
Mr Mayor, if we do indeed have a National Health Service that provides everyone with access to equal treatment at their point of need, why do we not have a Local Health Service that does the same?
Certainly the hard working tax payers in Chadderton, Saddleworth and Shaw and Crompton are being seriously short-changed with their current provision.
We have been promised new health centres in these areas for years; it would nice to see this finally happen – and soon.
The recent appointment of our own Chief Executive Dr Carolyn Wilkins, to a key position and leading role in our local NHS gives me some hope that things may now finally move in the right direction.
With this in mind my second question to the Leader tonight is when can we expect to see new health centres in all areas of our Borough that are fit for the 21st Century?