Please note, due to a vehicle breakdown the country round collections for garden and kitchen waste have not commenced today Friday 13 September.

The council we will be returning next week as per normal schedule.

Q1 Leaders Question – OAP Tram Charge

Madame Mayor, I want to bring to your attention the rather unpleasant and underhand news that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority are planning to tax the elderly residents of this Borough before they can even board a tram.

Pensioners who currently enjoy free travel on public transport across Greater Manchester are being forced to pay an annual fee if they want to travel from A to B on Metrolink.

The new Charge will be £10, whereas before it was free!

This new tax will be live as early as January 2020.

I hope we plan to communicate this to our elderly residents in the Borough? 

We must also think about if this new strategy should be means tested and not rolled out to everyone regardless of their own personal circumstances.

The national law states free travel for the over sixty fives on buses, but from next year any pensioner wanting to claim free travel on the Greater Manchester Train and Metrolink Tram network will be forced to pay an annual administration charge.

This £10 charge is simply a hidden Labour stealth tax our elderly. 

OAPs now must pay for TV licences and struggle with heating and other bills in winter.

Information freely available on the NHS website says hundreds of thousands of elderly people are cut off from society and suffer from loneliness.

This applies especially the over 75s as over one million of these older people live alone.

This begs the sad question, why did the Labour party at the last full council meeting in July say they want to maintain free TV licences for the over 65s but now plan to charge pensioners for claiming their rightly entitled free travel?

Please explain this to me because I know a lot of people will be just as puzzled as I am.

Councillor Howard Sykes MBE

Q2 Leaders Question – Greater Manchester Spatial Framework Proposals

Madame Mayor, it is widely known, that the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF), will build on large chunks of Oldham Borough’s untouched and finite Greenbelt and green spaces including our valuable Protected Open Space.  

This is a persisting issue in the Borough and there have been mass demonstrations and organised protests against these proposals.

This wide-ranging plan will decide the future of the Borough for generations.  

I have yet to hear which Oldham Council meeting will discuss the proposals detailed in the framework and for the Council to discuss and agree the terms laid out in the strategy.

Given the importance of this subject, it would be wise, in the Liberal Democrats opinion, that Oldham Borough have a special one item agenda Council meeting about the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework.

Can the Leader confirm when the much promised GMSF proposal will see the light of day?

Can the Leader confirm that Oldham Council will hold a special one item agenda Council meeting to discuss, agree and comment on published GMSF proposals?

And that there will be consultation on when that meeting might be held and a significantly long notice of when it will be held?

If there is no special meeting planned, which ordinary meeting of Council, will this important matter will be shoe horned into?

Councillor Howard Sykes MBE

Liberal Democrat Councillor Howard Sykes MBE has criticised Labour bosses in Manchester for their hypocrisy.  Pensioners who currently enjoy free travel on public transport across Greater Manchester are being forced to pay an annual fee if they want to travel from A to B.  The new Charge will be £10, whereas before it was free.  This tax will be live possibly as early as January 2020.

Councillor Sykes MBE commented:  “Pensioners currently enjoy free train, tram and bus travel weekdays, on weekends and public holidays.  This is a great way to enable older people access to the full network free of financial burden.” 

“This £10 charge is simply a Labour shakedown to stealth tax our elderly.  OAPs now have to pay for TV licences and struggle with heating bills in winter, this is unfair and misguided policy.”

The Labour led Greater Manchester Combined Authority wants to introduce the £10 annual charge from 2020 to make all its concessionary travel schemes more consistent.  GMCA currently charge a £10 administration fee for other concessionary schemes, such as the recent so called free pass for travel for 16-18 year olds.

Click on the link below to down load information and maps.

Time to reflect and thank all those who work in emergency services including those in the less visible ones.

For real time information: https://oldham.roadworks.org/

World leaders have acknowledged that there is a climate change emergency affecting every one of us.  Liberal Democrat Councillor Garth Harkness, who has brought the issue forward, wants to declare a Climate change Emergency at the 11 September Oldham Council Meeting.  

“People across the UK and Councils across Greater Manchester have spoken out in favour of declaring a climate change emergency.  Now it’s time for Oldham Borough to do the same,” stated Councillor Harkness.   

There is already an Environment Plan by the Greater Manchester authorities to become carbon neutral by 2038.  Liberal Democrats want the Council to expand on this and announce the Climate Change Emergency through media outlets and other partners to get wider support in cooperating against climate change. 

Liberal Democrats want Oldham Council to be carbon Neutral by 2025.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Dave Murphy comments on this new policy he is supporting:  “We want Oldham Borough to become environmentally minded and for everyone to take action.  This is a serious matter that concerns everybody, regardless of your political opinion.”

“Whilst the rainforest burns in Brazil and elsewhere in South America, so too does the Saddleworth moorland on our doorstep” stated Councillor Harkness.  “We have to take action now.  The first step to making a change is to get everybody thinking.  This call will address issues with the Council’s current environmental plan which expires next year in 2020.  We need to lead by example.”

The Liberal Democrats also want the UK government to do #itsbit to help the people of Oldham Borough do #ourbit in achieving these environmental goals.

Copy of Motion to September 11 Oldham Council Meeting:

Motion – Declaring a Climate Emergency

This Council notes:

• That the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) holds that climate change represents ‘an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet.’
• That the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence points to climate change being man-made.
• The harmful effect that climate change has on our lives, natural habitats and eco-systems.
• The IPCC’s call to governments and civil society to take urgent action to address climate change.
• The resolutions made by over 100 UK local authorities and the UK Parliament in declaring climate emergencies.
• Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Salford, Manchester city, Trafford & Stockport Metropolitan Boroughs have all declared a climate change emergency, Oldham Brough should too.

This Council welcomes:

• The ambitious commitment at the July 2019 Council of the Deputy Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Resources and Low Carbon to make the Council carbon-neutral by 2025.
• The opportunity provided by the expiry of the Council’s current Climate Change strategy in 2020 to make new and more ambitious commitments to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2025.

This Council therefore resolves to:

• Declare a Climate Emergency and publicise why this declaration has been made to the people of our Borough, our media outlets and our statutory, voluntary and business sector partners to enlist their support in taking collective action in addressing climate change.
• Solicit the views and ideas of our staff, elected members, our partners and the general public in helping to craft a new Climate Change Strategy to replace our current strategy in 2020.
• Identify clearly within this Strategy the ambition for this Council to become carbon-neutral by 2025.
• Sign up to the UK100 Pledge to commit to consuming energy from renewable sources, including renewable energy generated by the Council itself.
• Re-establish a cross-party Climate Change Strategy Group to oversee the delivery of the new strategy in partnership with the Deputy Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Resources and Low Carbon.
• Ask the Chief Executive to write to the relevant Ministers, the Mayor of Greater Manchester and the Leaders of the other Greater Manchester authorities seeking their endorsement of our Climate Emergency declaration and our ambition to become carbon-neutral and requesting of central government the powers and financial resources to enable us to become carbon-neutral.

Proposed by: Councillor Garth Harkness. Seconded by: Councillor Dave Murphy                                                                       

We all like a bag of chips from time to time, but we also like to live a longer, healthier life.  This is why Councillor Hazel Gloster and the Oldham Liberal Democrats want to ban Councils advertising fast food.  

The Liberal Democrat policy concerns publicly owned poster sites, notices on any building owned by the Council and on Greater Manchester Tram/Bus Network property.  The wider scope of this idea which will be brought to Oldham Council meeting on the 11^th of September will seek to tackle the national problem of poor health and death caused by fatty and sugary foods.

This Liberal Democrat plan sets out to tackle Oldham Borough first.

Councillor Hazel Gloster stated that:  “Eating large amounts of fast food and sugared drinks contributes massively to obesity, tooth decay, diabetes, stomach problems, sleep deprivation and sometimes death.  It is the responsibility of those in government to present a modern image of a high health standard to the rest of the UK.”

Councillor Louie Hamblett, a fellow Liberal Democrat who will be seconding Councillor Hazel Gloster’s proposal says: “The Liberal Democrats want this to be a political domino.  This will hopefully remove excessive temptation and give children and adults in the local area a chance to learn how to eat with reduced sugar and fat in their diets.”

“We want other local authorities and the UK government to follow suit in this change in the local law.  Hopefully then will we tackle health setbacks such as heart disease, cancer and tooth decay.”

Copy of Motion to 11 September Council Meeting:

Ban on Fast Food and Energy Drinks Advertising

Council notes that:

• Fast food contains high levels of fat, salt and sugar and energy drinks often contain high levels of caffeine and sugar.
• The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health predicts half of all children in the UK will be overweight or obese by 2020.
• The Mayor of London banned all fast food advertising on publicly-controlled advertising spaces across London’s entire transport network.
• Sustain and Foodwatch recently published a report ‘Taking Down Junk Food Adverts’ which recommends that local authorities regulate adverts on public telephone boxes and that the Advertising Standards Authority should be able to regulate advertising outside nurseries, children’s centres, parks, family attractions and leisure centres.

As a local authority with a statutory responsibility for public health, Council believes that it should do all that is possible to discourage the consumption of fast food and energy drinks.

Council therefore resolves to:

• Ask the Chief Executive to write to the Chief Executive of Transport for Greater Manchester asking TFGM to impose a ban on the advertising of fast food and energy drinks on publicly owned poster sites etc across the Greater Manchester transport network.
• Ensure that fast food or energy drinks are not advertised on any hoarding or within any building owned by this Council including large advertisements on bus stops.
• Ensure that such products are not sold to children or young people on any of our premises.
• Ask our NHS, social housing, voluntary and private sector partners, including the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to make a similar undertaking.
• Ask the Chief Executive to write to the relevant minister requesting the recommendations of the ‘Taking Down Junk Food Adverts’ report be adopted as government policy as soon as possible; copying in our local Members of Parliament to seek their support.

Proposed by: Councillor Hazel Gloster. Seconded by: Councillor Louie Hamblett