Oldham’s Labour Council has against delayed agreeing its equality objectives, some 15 months after they were legally required to be updated – meaning that they are now unlikely to be introduced until well after the elections in May.

After numerous delays, they updated objectives were due to come to Council for agreement in March, but after an administrative error, they still have to go to be reviewed by four other bodies before they can be approved by the Council.

Local Liberal Democrat Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani said: “The Council’s equality objectives should be championing the needs of the elderly, the disabled, the poor and the working class – anyone who is disadvantaged, for whatever reason. 

“For 15 months, the Labour Council has failed to support those people, by setting any objectives. If you are discriminated against, these objectives are supposed to be here to help you.”

The objectives must legally be updated every four years, meaning that the Council has not had anything in place since the 2015–19 objectives went out of date. 

Councillor Al-Hamdani continued: “Another delay to this is ridiculous. I fail to understand how this Labour Council can have again failed to get this organised. 

“I first raised this early last year, when I realised that the Council had missed the statutory deadline for updating the objectives. I was assured, repeatedly, that matters were in hand, and that it was merely a case of ensuring that the objectives and the strategy for delivering them were developed hand-in-hand. A year later, and nothing has yet come forward.

“Again, I ask the Council leadership, if you really care about equality and fairness, how can you not have brought this forward yet?”

All schools, colleges and early years settings will begin wider reopening of classrooms to all pupils from Monday, 8 March.

This is an important time for our borough as people increasingly move around, make journeys and interact with people again. The importance of managing this is key to avoid Covid rates rising in the borough.

Lateral flow testing is key to this managed return, and each school and college has a plan in place to test staff and young people three times in the first ten days back before home testing begins.

Young people and their families may be anxious and so the council have produced the following video with members of our youth council and Oldham College students to alleviate some of this concern. Watch the video online here.

Liberal Democrat Councillors Diane Williamson and Hazel Gloster have sent a joint letter to all of Oldham’s state-funded schools and colleges on International Women’s Day (8 March) calling on them to sign up to a government scheme which provides free sanitary products for low-income students. An inability to access or afford sanitary products prevents some students from attending classes. With the post-Lockdown return to education planned from today, this issue is even more important.

Councillor Williamson explained:  “The 8 March is celebrated every year as International Women’s Day.  The advancement of girls and women in our society has been greatly enhanced by their ability to participate in, and benefit, from education at all levels, yet the attendance of girls and young women from lower-income households at their school or college has sometimes been impeded by their inability to access sanitary products every month.  This isn’t right – a bodily function should not prevent any student being able to access education as this can lead to an inability to access university or employment opportunities in adulthood.”

Both councillors proposed a motion to the September 2018 meeting of Oldham College calling for free sanitary products to be made available to school and college students and for an end to VAT being charged on sanitary products.

Councillor Hazel Gloster added: “In January this year we celebrated when the government scrapped the ‘tampon tax’ lowering the price on sanitary products, but were disappointed to hear that one year after the Department of Education introduced, as we suggested, a scheme to make free sanitary products available to schools and colleges that only 40% of those eligible have signed up to the scheme.”

Councillor Williamson and Councillor Gloster are hoping that their appeal will encourage more Oldham schools and colleges to take up the offer.

“COVID-19 has placed increased financial pressure on families, with 30% of girls reported to have been struggling to access the period products they need during lockdown”, Councillor Williamson concluded. “Ideally we would like to see every eligible school and college in Oldham sign up as the situation in a poor borough like ours is likely to be much worse.”

The rapid Coronavirus testing facilities continue at four centres across the borough. Tests are available for people who cannot work from home, who work with members of the public, and who are not showing any symptoms.

All public-facing staff are encouraged to get a test twice a week. Testing centres are located at:

• Shaw Life Long Learning Centre, High Street, OL2 8RQ. Opening Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 7am-5.30pm. Wednesday 10am-8pm

• Failsworth Town Hall, Oldham Road, M35 0FJ. Opening Monday to Friday 9am-5.30pm

• Oldham Leisure Centre, Middleton Road, OL9 6AF. Opening Monday to Friday 7.30am-5.30pm. Saturday 10am-4.30pm

• Uppermill Civic Hall, Lee Street OL3 6AE. Opening Monday to Friday 8.30am-5.30pm

Testing is quick and easy. Appointments aren’t necessary – just turn up. For more information, visit https://www.oldham.gov.uk/keyworkertesting

https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme

A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.

We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.

From challenge comes change, so let’s all choose to challenge.

Commonwealth Day is an annual celebration observed by people all over the Commonwealth in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Americas, the Pacific and Europe.

https://thecommonwealth.org/

This year Commonwealth Day will be centred around the same theme as last year, which is also the theme for the forthcoming 2021 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

The theme – ‘Delivering a Common Future’ – highlights how the 54 member countries in the Commonwealth family are ‘innovating, connecting and transforming’ to help achieve some of its biggest goals, like fighting climate change, promoting good governance and boosting trade.

Crompton Moor may have featured recently on a BBC Countryfile programme as a place of beauty and wonderment, but Shaw Liberal Democrat Councillor and Chair of Crompton Moor Users Group, Howard Sykes MBE, is concerned that the protection of the moor and our borough’s other much-loved open spaces is threatened by the Council’s failure to properly publicise the local orders that prevent irresponsible behaviour.

Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) allow local authorities to proscribe certain types of behaviour, imposing financial penalties upon those offenders who choose to ignore them.  On moorland, a PSPO would typically prohibit the lighting of fires, the use of Chinese lanterns and irresponsible cycling and motor-cycling other than on certain defined routes, and place certain restrictions on dog-walking, hunting and dog fouling  They are intended to keep the public safe and prevent harm to the natural environment.

Councillor Sykes wrote to Council officers asking why Oldham Council’s website had not shown details of the PSPOs in place across the borough for many months and why signage on the moor has not replaced.  Commenting, he said: “Regrettably our green spaces are from time-to-time invaded by a few selfish and mindless idiots who chose to despoil our green spaces and ruin the quiet enjoyment for the vast majority.  PSPOs are one means we can fight back against this lawless minority, but we cannot prosecute them if we do not publicise them.”

In the response, Councillor Sykes was informed that, after a review of over 200 existing PSPOs as required by law last year, the Council’s Legal Services Department is now authorising the new orders and will place the details on the Council’s website by the end of March, following his intervention.  As to the physical replacement of the signs, there is still no news!

“It is disappointing that we shall have to wait another month for the website to show the details, but more worrying that there was no confirmation about the replacement of the physical signs”, added Councillor Sykes.  “I am going to keep badgering Council officers on this as anti-social behaviour has gotten worse over the Lockdown and my wager is that it will become worse still when this is lifted.”

I have been informed the Bin Service are slightly behind with kitchen and garden waste collections due to an increase in tonnages with the good weather over the weekend.

Residents please be advised to leave bins /caddies out and they will collect first thing tomorrow morning.

After tens of thousands of supporters contacted the Government in support of a change to the Domestic Abuse Bill, to outlaw threats to share intimate images, the Conservatives have agreed that it should form part of the forthcoming Domestic Abuse Bill.

Local Liberal Democrat Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani, who was one of many to write to the Home Office calling for the legislation, was delighted to hear of the change. He said: “We need to change the UK’s culture around domestic abuse. This is another step in breaking down the taboos and attitudes which have let this situation fester for so long.”

The lockdown has focused attention on domestic abuse, with rates dramatically increasing, but even before the start of lockdown, it was already endemic. According to Government figures, in the year before lockdown, 2.3 million people suffered from domestic abuse. That’s one in every 30 people, suffering from violence in their own home, every year.

Sam continued: “It is shocking that so many people are suffering in silence. Just on those figures, it is likely that someone in your street has been abused in the last year.

“It is all too easy to look for stereotypes when it comes to domestic abuse. One of the hardest things about it is that there is no one type of victim, and no one type of abuser. It could happen to anyone.

“It is incredibly difficult to escape from an abusive relationship, and changing the law to protect women – for it is almost always women who are on the end of these threats – from this type of behaviour is an important step.”

Other changes are still vitally needed. Oldham Liberal Democrats have written to the Home Secretary to ask for the Rail to Refuge scheme, which gives free rail tickets to women seeking to escape abuse to be made permanent, and are campaigning to ensure that public sexual harassment is made a criminal offence.