Question 1)

A future for Oldham’s town centre shopping centres?

My first question tonight concerns the future of the Spindles and Town Square shopping centres.

It would be remiss of me firstly to not congratulate the Leader on becoming Oldham Borough’s biggest shopkeeper.

It is a bold venture to purchase not one, but two shopping centres, in today’s retail climate, but I understand the Leader described it as an ‘absolute bargain’.  Let us all hope so.

Many of the units in both the Spindles and the Town Square shopping centres lie empty, some of these for a long time, and consequently many residents are wondering whether this in fact represents a risky purchase.

Town centres across Britain are becoming increasingly devoid of customers as many people are today wary of stepping much further than their doorsteps with the ever-present threat of Covid-19, and the pandemic has massively exacerbated the trend of the last decade for shoppers to turn more and more to their keyboards to order goods from mail order stores or the supermarket. 

The Leader has spoken about moving Tommyfield Market in its entirety into these two shopping centres and relocating hundreds of Council staff above the shops, though I am sure many will be working from home for the foreseeable future, if not forever.

These actions to repurpose the shopping centres will cost significant sums of money as will their refurbishment.

The Council’s relationship with some Tommyfield Market traders has in recent history not been a happy one with some traders feeling abandoned. 

Can the Leader tonight tell us what discussions Council officers have held in advance of the purchase with the Tommyfield Market traders, what their response has been to the proposals, and what incentives and support this Council will provide them with to make the move?

Now the Leader has let us know the purchase cost of £9.5M to Oldham Council Taxpayers.

Can he also tell us more about the Administration’s plans for these two shopping precincts to make them vibrant once more, whether as a renewed and reduced retail offer, as town centre homes, as a new civic hub, or even as a potential new home for Coliseum? 

Question 2)

Building on Brownfield Sites

I wish to turn to a very topical subject for my next question.

A subject heightened in importance by the recent publication of the latest Oldham Plan and the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework proposals, namely the use of brownfield land to build houses upon.

I am sure that the Leader will be aware that the Town and Country Planning (Brownfield Land Register) Regulations 2017 require local authorities to prepare, maintain and publish a register of brownfield land.  The register should identify previously developed sites in the Borough that are considered as being suitable for housing.

The present government supposedly has a target to build 300,000 homes in each of the next five years.

A recent study by the countryside charity, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, has found that there is enough brownfield land that has been previously developed to provide space to build 300,000 homes in England in each of the next four years.

And then some. 

In fact, enough land to build One Million Three Hundred Thousand homes in all.

Given that this administration has now – rightly – adopted a Brownfield First policy and the Oldham public are, rightly, up in arms about any possibly of building on the Green Belt, can the Leader tell me how many homes the sites listed currently on the Council’s Brownfield Register accommodate?

Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Oldham Council