Shaw and Crompton Councillors Advice/Ward Surgeries:
Thursday February: 2, 9, 16 and 23.
All at Shaw Lifelong Learning Centre, High Street, Shaw
From 7:30pm to 8:30pm
Councillors: Sykes, Blyth, Gloster, Williamson, Murphy and Turner
NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY
Details soup-lunch
Saturday, February 11
Saturday, March 11
12 noon – 1.30pm
St James’ Parish Church
I wanted to inform you of the latest information I have received from the Council regarding the road surface of both Linney Lane and Scarr Lane.
A number of you have been in contact with me regarding the pot holes and the general condition of the road surfaces on Linney Lane and Scarr Lane over the last couple of years or so.
As some of you will already be aware, my colleagues Rod Blyth, Chris Gloster and I, have been trying to get some action to remedy the poor quality of the road surfaces. I have sent numerous communications to the Highways Department along with attending a significant number of meetings to try and progress this matter.
I can confirm that the work will definitely be going ahead. Since receiving confirmation of the work I have been pursuing the Highways Department for a start date and this is the most up to date information I have received.
Highways have informed me they are planning this work on the following dates: Monday 13th February 2017 (Scarr Lane) 1 week, and 20th February 2017 (Linney Lane) for 2 weeks.
Please note that these dates are not set in stone as yet; these are the proposed dates which have been put into the tender documents to the contractors, so assuming they have availability on these dates, the work will hopefully start around the dates specified above to fit in with School Holidays. If these dates change I will do my best to inform you of the new ones.
Details: ombc-status-as-at-3-february-2017
The Liberal Democrat Group on Oldham Council will propose that in this year’s budget more money is invested on highway and environmental improvements to make the borough’s streets safer and cleaner.
The Shadow Cabinet Member for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, Cllr John McCann, said:
“I would like to thank Council officers and my colleague Councillor Diane Williamson for their invaluable support in putting together these proposals.”
“The Liberal Democrat Group recognises that once again this year the Labour Administration has been forced to cut spending and services as the grant from central government has once more been squeezed, and the situation will not improve whilst the Conservatives remain in office. Local government continues to be one of the biggest victims of this Government’s austerity strategy and things will only get worse; by 2021 Oldham will lose all of it’s central Government grant.”
Labour has again proposed that Council Tax bills rise by 2% to pay for improvements to adult social care and a further 1.99% for other services.
Cllr McCann commented: “The Liberal Democrats will once again support this rise as it will at least raise some more money for services, but we also think it is important to focus every penny that we have on core services. As well as revenue-raising, our strategy is to continue to identify savings in back-office bureaucracy and waste to free up money to support the services that are most valued by our ratepayers.”
This year, once more the Liberal Democrats are proposing measures that will generate almost £675,000 in savings each year – from reducing publications, printing and advertising, to tackling absenteeism and reducing expenditure on employing agency staff. This is money that they want to spend on better roads, cleaner streets and more youth outreach provision.
Cllr McCann said: “We recognise that this is only a relatively small amount compared to the many millions that this Council has been forced to save, but this modest amount could nonetheless be a game-changer – it would provide us with the revenue we need to borrow over £5 million to invest in our key highways, with enough left over to radically improve our gully-cleaning service, restore a free Bulky Bobs waste collection service and pay for more youth outreach provision to engage with young people in our communities.”
The Liberal Democrats are calling for over £460,000 from the additional savings that they have identified to go to:
Amended area of operation: pennine-local-link-4-web
Good news!
This project was agreed at the Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) Bus Network & TfGM Services on the 20 January, in Manchester Town Hall.
I spoke at the meeting about this matter and asked them to amend the proposal so it covers residents in Shaw who have been equally affected by the loss of the 58 service that used to run through Shaw to Rochdale but now terminates at Wrens’ Nest.
Since the 59 terminated at Wren’s Nest it has left a significant number of my constituents without a service. Those living in Dunwood Park Courts, a large section of Milnrow Road, Bridge Street, Railway View; and the bottom of Buckstones Road, Shore Avenue, Higher Park, Park Parade, Cliff Hill Road, Calf Hey and Jordan Avenue.
Following further discussions I had with transport officers after the meeting I am very pleased to report that TfGM have now amended the proposed operating area of this new local link to include this part of Shaw. See map attached (dotted red line).
Hopefully this should help the many elderly and those without access to their own transport in this part of Shaw. I would like to thank TfGM Officers for the speed in responding to my request.
To register passengers can call up on 0161 200 6012 or register online: https://tfgm-passweb.trapezegrouphosting.co.uk/hiwire?.a=pLogoff
For further information on the Pennine Link: http://www.tfgm.com/buses/local_link/Pages/services/pennine.html
Thursday November – 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30.
All at Shaw Lifelong Learning Centre, High Street, Shaw
From 7:30pm to 8:30pm
Councillors: Sykes, Blyth, Gloster, Williamson, Murphy and Turner
NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY
An agreement by Councillors on the Labour-controlled Greater Manchester Combined Authority that staff from the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) office be relocated from Oldham to Manchester City Centre has been branded ‘a waste of public money and bad news for Oldham’, by the Leader of the Opposition, Liberal Democrat Councillor Howard Sykes MBE.
Greater Manchester Waste Authority staff will be moved from Metropolitan House in Oldham Town Centre to Churchgate House in Manchester City Centre.
Councillor Sykes said: “Financially this is madness. Rental costs at Metropolitan House are £5 per square foot and those at Churchgate House are £16.50 so just to provide accommodation to these staff will cost over three times what it does in Oldham, and that does not include the actual cost of the move itself and other costs.”
Cllr Sykes has other more fundamental objections to the move in addition to just cost.
“In recent years Inland Revenue and Court Service staff have moved away from Oldham. The Council rightly objected. Now we are doing exactly the same when it is in our control and we will lose out yet again when the staff of the Waste Authority move out of Town. Some 10 – 20 high quality jobs have been exported from Oldham to Manchester. They will now be spending their earnings in Manchester’s economy, and not ours in the near future.”
“Devolution should not only be about devolving power, services and money from Whitehall to Greater Manchester (GM); it should also be about divesting services out from Manchester City Centre to the other Boroughs in GM.”
“One of my worries has always been that Manchester will seek to control and centralise everything and as a result keep most of the benefits that devolution brings.”
“We want our share too and this should include retaining our fair share of public sector jobs. In fact some of those GM Combined Authority jobs based in Manchester City Centre should be moved out into places like Oldham, Rochdale and Ashton. That would save money in operating costs and give a real boost to the regeneration of those local economies.”
“The Waste Authority team have done a good job working from their desks in Oldham – I see no reason why they should not continue to do so.”
“What has been agreed makes no financial sense and certainly makes no sense to Oldham and I fail to understand why Labour have agreed to it!”
The Leader of the Liberal Democrat Opposition Group on Oldham Council, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, has expressed his deep disappointment that work to transform Parliament Square is not yet complete.
Councillor Sykes remarked that: “Although we as politicians were all pleased to see the cinema opening, it is very disappointing that months later the work on improvement works to the square is still not complete.”
“My understanding was that this work was scheduled for completion by Christmas or very early in the New Year so I sorry to see that there is still much to do at the bottom end of the site.”
“We must only hope that the contractors are able to pull back the timetable and finish the work soon so that Parliament Square might finally become the high quality town centre focal point that we all wish for and not a building site.”
