Leaders Questions to Oldham Full Council 10/07/2019
Q1: Keeping the Travelodge tourist pounds in Oldham
Madam Mayor, although it hardly represents the ‘gamechanger’ that his predecessor promised for the Princes Gate site, I do welcome the Leader’s recent announcement that there will be a new Travelodge at Oldham Mumps, and the fact that he has indicated that there is a demand for more hotel accommodation in the town centre.
A pity then that the Hotel Futures Project is dead in the water, but that is another story and I shall not go there tonight.
No rather I will turn to a Travelodge related matter.
If we are to truly maximise the benefits from this hotel development, we shall need to ensure that the spending made by guests staying there is, as far as possible, kept within our Borough.
The new hotel’s location at Mumps will mean that Manchester will be all too easily accessible by Metrolink and the city’s bright lights will represent a magnet.
I would like therefore to suggest that we look to work with the hotel’s proprietors to promote all that this Borough has to offer, and that would include our Coliseum Theatre, our Cinema complex, Gallery Oldham and our town centre shops, bars and eateries, as well as the delights of our Saddleworth villages.
Can
the Leader tell me if he would be prepared to look to work with the Town Centre
Partnership and with our other partners in the leisure and retail industries to
see if we can come up with a discount voucher scheme and other similar incentives
for hotel guests at both this and any future hotels to keep their vital tourist
pounds in our Borough?
Q2: Let’s bring back our public water fountains
Madam Mayor, my second question tonight relates to my concern for our environment and involves a practical proposal to make available drinking water to the public.
In times past it was very common for municipal authorities and for individual philanthropists to provide drinking fountains, many very ornate, in public places.
This enabled everyone to access clean, safe drinking water for free – I am sure many members will themselves have used them in the past, the one dispensing Buxton spring water in the centre of that town being especially noteworthy.
I wonder though how many members here are aware that this practice has recently been revived by the Mayor of London who last year to his credit established a ‘drinking fountain fund’ with the support of the capital water utility provider, Thames Water.
This will locate new fountains, or rehydration points as they are now known, initially at twenty locations across the capital and thereafter on a rolling programme.
Apparently, Londoners drink an average of 175 bottles of water every year, so it is far better for them and for our environment to encourage them to fill up for free into a reusable bottle, rather than drinking and discarding single-use bottles, many of whom end up in our oceans and in our sea-life.
Citizens of our Borough may not perhaps consume so much bottled water, but any attempt on our part to replicate what has been done in London will make a tangible, practical contribution to making our Borough single-use plastic free.
Certainly, places that would merit the location of such rehydration points in our Borough would be our many beautiful public parks.
For example, last year in the height of summer, I visited Dovestones Reservoir and the water dispenser there was in great demand, but also in great need of renovation.
So, Madam Mayor, my second question to the Leader, and it is rather a suggestion, is will he look to replicate this excellent scheme in Oldham, perhaps by using some of our airport dividend, by establishing at least one new drinking fountain in each of our district centres and would he also ask our own Mayor of Greater Manchester, to replicate it across the conurbation, working with United Utilities to do so?
Leader of the Opposition
Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Oldham Council