The church service at Oldham Parish Church will be no longer be held on Remembrance Sunday.
The national lockdown has prevented the holding of our planned church service on Sunday.
However, the service will still be streamed via the council’s website at www.oldham.gov.uk/RemembranceSunday and also on Oldham Community Radio, from 10.50am on Remembrance Sunday with some pre-recorded elements including wreath laying at all of the civic districts (inc Crompton).
Although not all of the service may now be broadcast live, the new arrangements will hopefully ensure that the broadcast is as meaningful and respectful as it would have been if we were able to be there in person.
A copy of the Order of Service will also be available on the Council’s website alongside the broadcast.
We would also like to remind everyone that they are very much invited to commemorate Remembrance this year from home; keeping everyone safe in these most challenging and difficult of times.
People can still individually lay wreaths (at any time) and pay their respects at specific memorials but there are no organised services and people need to be mindful of social distancing and other National Lockdown rules when they do.
Please do support The Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal – details below:
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
Click and collect available at all libraries that are currently open
Limited number of computers available for IT sessions, by appointment only, at all currently open libraries, with a maximum time slot of 1 hour (evidence from booking to date is that library IT is only being used for essential purposes – primary work applications, benefits applications etc)
Continuation of home delivery service in partnership with Age Concern
Continuation of element of service which provides books to schools
The ongoing resurfacing works on B6194 Oldham Road / Heyside have hit delays due to the weather over the last few days.
The works had hoped to be past the junction of Bullcote Lane as of yesterday (Sunday) with the top section of Oldham road being resurfaced and back open to traffic permanently. However, we are now in a position where this section of road will need to be closed on Wednesday & Thursday of this week (4th & 5th November) between Big Lamp Roundabout and Bullcote Lane Junction.
The works on those two new dates will be carried out between 0930 & 14:45. We have been in and spoken with both schools within this section, and informed them of our new dates, to ensure they can pass the information on to parents and visitors. Advance signs with the new dates will also be erected on site later today.
The Junction of Bullcote Lane will be closed for resurfacing of the junction on Saturday 7th November, with that then completing the first two phases of works. From Sunday 8th November the section of B6194 from Big Lamp Roundabout through to and including the Bullcote Lane will be reopened to traffic and having been resurfaced in full.
The works will then continue south through Turf Lane & Salmon Fields as previously planned.
Should you require any further information please contact:
Two years after the Conservative Government promised to disbar sex offenders from public office, the government has still not introduced the necessary legislation and in a recent response to a question from a Liberal Democrat peer in Parliament they have given no promise to do so soon.
Baroness Kath Pinnock has recently asked a question in Parliament on behalf of Oldham Liberal Democrat Group Leader Councillor Howard Sykes MBE.
Councillor Sykes backed a motion at Oldham Council with the-then Leader of the Council, Councillor Jean Stretton, calling on the Government to introduce legislation to prevent anyone required to sign the Sex Offences Act from standing or remaining in public office in March 2017.
In October 2018 Local Government Minister Rishi Sunak MP promised to introduce the necessary legislation but, after two years, still nothing has happened.
Councillor Sykes has not given up; commenting he said: “The Tories are citing the Covid-19 pandemic for the reason nothing has happened, but they had a full eighteen months before this crisis to act on Minister Rishi Sunak’s promise. They failed to do so. Why has nothing happened? I will never give up until it does”.
Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Pinnock of Cleckheaton tabled the following question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in the House of Lords on 5 October 2020
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to honour the commitment made by the Local Government Minister on 18 October 2018 to amend section 80 of the Local Government Act 1972 to disbar persons required to sign the Sex Offenders Register from acquiring or holding public office as councillors or mayors.
The response received from Conservative Lord Greenhalgh of Fulham, Minister of State on 19 October 2020
It is essential that all our councillors, mayors and London Assembly members are held to the highest standards of conduct.
That is why the Government has committed to legislate on this issue as soon as Parliamentary time allows.
The Oldham Liberal Democrat Council Group has made its opposition to Conservative Government proposals to change the planning system known today in its written response to a public consultation.
The proposals are contained in a White Paper Planning for the Future, and parties with an interest were asked to respond by today’s closing deadline. Liberal Democrat Group Leader, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, has responded on behalf of his party colleagues with a six-page blistering attack in reply to the consultation.
Liberal Democrat Councillors believe the proposals represent nothing short of a ‘power grab’ with elected representatives and the public cut out of the planning process in the future.
Councillor Sykes explained: “Planning democracy as we know it will be killed off. There will no longer be any planning committees. All land will be placed into one of three categorised zones for development, and national planning guidelines will be applied to any developments in future. Councillors or members of the public will not be able to object to planning applications as all judgements on them will be made by unelected and unaccountable planning officials.”
Councillor Sykes is also fearful for the future of the Green Belt: “I am far from satisfied that our Green Belt will have the protection that it currently does in law, and other categories of public open space will have none if it falls outside the ‘protected zone’. In Greater Manchester, our Green Belt and green spaces are already under attack from the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework; Planning for the Future will make it much easier to develop on these green spaces in future.”
Councillor Sykes is firmly convinced that the government is in any case aiming at the wrong targets in its White Paper: “Government ministers are proposing to fix a planning system that isn’t broken. Planners and Councillors are not responsible for the refusal of developers to build new homes. Nine out of ten planning applications are granted. Existing sites with planning permission which could accommodate one million homes have not been built out. The Council for the Protection of Rural England has just published a study showing that Brownfield land is available in England on which 1,300,000 new homes could be built!”
“If the Government wants to do something constructive in planning it needs to get developers building instead of land banking and it needs to provide more money to local authorities for cleaning up contamination on Brownfield sites so we can put them back into use for housing”.
Oldham Council’s Liberal Democrats want to see street harassment of women and girls made a crime, as it is in Portugal, Belgium and France.
Saddleworth and Lees Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani is taking a motion on this issue to the next meeting of the full Council (Wednesday November 4).
Councillor Al-Hamdani said: “Everyone should feel safe on our streets and in our communities, yet in national surveys two-thirds of women and girls report that they have been subjected to street harassment. We all the right to self-respect, and to freedom of movement and freedom of expression, yet women and girls are intimidated by this unwanted personal sexual attention. It is frightening and as a result some choose not to go out or do not feel able to be themselves.
“I want the Council to back the campaign of the group, Our Streets Now, which wants to end street harassment by criminalising this unacceptable behaviour and prosecuting offenders. These would represent powerful steps towards tackling gender inequality and keeping women and girls safe.”
As well as outlawing harassment at a national level, Liberal Democrat Councillors also want to see some local action. Shaw Councillor Hazel Gloster, who is backing the proposal, explained: “Only 14 % of pupils have been taught about harassment at school and less than half of all pupils would report an incident of sexual harassment to a teacher. We need all pupils to know more about what constitutes harassment and we need to ensure that all female pupils would feel confident, comfortable, and believed when they report it.
“We want to see all of our borough’s schools introduce this subject within the curriculum and to take on board the advice and recommendations of Our Streets Now. I am sure that this will also be an issue and concern for Oldham’s inspirational Youth Councillors”.
The next full meeting of Oldham Council can be seen online from 6pm on Wednesday November 4.
The wording of the motion follows.
Council November 4, 2020 – Notice of Opposition Business – Let’s make street harassment a crime
This Council is committed to making our Borough a safer place for everyone.
Council notes:
Public sexual harassment is the most common form of violence against women and girls, restricting their freedom of movement and expression;
That in surveys two-thirds of women and girls report they have faced street harassment in the UK;
That street harassment in the UK is not covered by any specific offence, unlike in Portugal, Belgium and France;
That stopping street harassment would be a powerful step in tackling inequality and keeping women safe;
The incredible work of Our Streets Now, and their petition which has attracted over 200,000 signatures to make street harassment a specific crime;
That according to a report by Our Streets Now, only 14 per cent of pupils have been taught about public sexual harassment at school, and that 47 per cent of them would not report an incident of public sexual harassment to their school because they were afraid or feared they would not be taken seriously by staff.
Council recognises
That we must create an environment where street harassment is seen and policed as a crime, and where girls feel safer on our streets;
That we need to work together with our schools to ensure that anyone who is harassed will feel confident that their report will be treated with the respect, care and seriousness that is required;
That changing the law, and education for our young people, are key planks in combating street harassment, establishing safer streets, and delivering equality.
Council resolves to:
Promote the Our Streets Now campaign to make street harassment a crime, and encourage all elected members, and residents to sign the petition;
Ask the Chief Executive to write to the Home Secretary to ask her to make street harassment a specific crime;
Ask the Chief Executive to write to the three MPs who cover the Borough, and the Mayor of Greater Manchester / Police and Crime Commissioner, to ask them to show their support for this campaign by signing the petition and by lobbying ministers to make street harassment a specific crime;
Ask schools, academies and colleges in the Borough to each develop a clear policy on tackling harassment, separate to their bullying policy;
Ask local schools to include education around public sexual harassment as part of their PSHE education;
Ensure that the recommendations of the Our Schools Now report are communicated to schools with a view to integrating their recommendations into their PSHE teaching
