Poowatch progress report requested
Recent press cutting from LGA First : First Magazine – LGA
Mrs Helen Lockwood, Executive Director Economy, Skills & Neighbourhoods, Mrs Carol Brown, Assistant Executive Director – Environment
Dear Mrs Lockwood & Mrs Brown,
I am sure you will recall that I wrote to you in December 2015 about Poowatch, a free web app for smartphones, tablets and personal computers.
Poo Watch was launched in November 2015 in Worcester to help clean up the city’s streets and to shame irresponsible dog-owners to clear up after their pets. There has recently been further positive publicity in the local government press – attached – and I still believe this technology could be of great use in helping Oldham Council tackle this blight in our borough, particularly in hot spots such as Dunwood Park in my own ward.
To reiterate the contents of my first letter, through the Poowatch app, Worcester residents can record any dog litter they spot in the city. The information they provide will help identify dog litter hotspots so action can be targeted in areas of greatest need.
The good thing with this approach is that the public can be the Council’s eyes and ears in the community, and they are reporting real incidents in real time to enable prompt action to be taken. This app gives residents the ability to help change the behaviour of irresponsible dog owners and to contribute to both a more co-operative and a cleaner borough.
The new web app has been jointly developed by the Safer Worcester Partnership, the Duckworth Worcestershire Trust (DWT) and Worcester City Council with funding from West Mercia’s Police and Crime Commissioner. It is free to access and uses GPS locaters to provide a simple and easy way for people to report dog mess and will help create an interactive map of the city showing the worst affected areas. It also shows the nearest poo bin to the location of the person accessing the app.
As this is free there is no deterrent to residents who are tech savvy from accessing it and using it. As you will know from complaints relayed to you, Councillors are constantly approached by constituents who are enraged by seeing dog poo on our pavements and who demand real action now. Poowatch allows them to be part of that action and make a difference rather than simply registering a complaint.
I would therefore like to ask you for an update as to where this authority is at in terms of introducing Poowatch to the Oldham Borough.
I have enclosed a recent article from First Magazine from the LGA.
I shall look forward to receiving your reply.
Yours sincerely
Howard Sykes
CC Cllr Fida Hussain
Fun, friendship and flowers Friday 11 November, Sweetbriar House, Shaw
Managed weekly bin collections – starting Monday 3 October
Copy of a letter I have been sent by Oldham Council.
We would like to remind you that the new bin collection cycle will start next Monday 3 October, when bin collections across the borough will switch to the new collection pattern.
As the new pattern is rolled out some residents will start with a grey bin collection, some with a blue bin collection and some with a brown bin collection. This means that some residents will have recycling collections closer together and some will be further apart. The transition has been planned to ensure that no resident waits more than three weeks for a grey bin collection.
By the end of the first three-week cycle all residents will have had all of their bins emptied.
The changes aim to improve our recycling rate and reduce the amount spent on general rubbish disposal by as much as £3 million over the next two years.
Food and garden waste will continue to be collected every week and this service will be rolled out to a small remaining number of rural properties that didn’t previously have it.
All households have now had their new collection calendars and reminder tags are being placed on bins to ensure residents are ready and informed.
Residents have been advised to call the contact centre on 0161 770 6644 or visit our website www.oldham.gov.uk/waste
Former Crompton Ambulance Station, Moor Street, Shaw
You may recall we met late last year to discuss Crompton ambulance station.
As you know, it has been closed for some time and ambulance crews have been using Oldham station as their base. This has had no negative impact on performance and response times and in fact, we have seen a very small improvement in response times in the area.
This week, the Trust’s Estates Programme Board agreed that Crompton’s ambulance should continue to operate from Oldham and that the Trust Board should consider the sale of the site. In the meantime, the Service is also looking at alternatives for Oldham station which is also in need or extensive repair. One likely proposal is to jointly share premises with Greater Manchester Fire Service, although discussions are at a very early stage.
We are aware that the Crompton site is attracting ant-social behaviour and we are securing the building as well as we can.
I appreciate it isn’t a great deal of new information for you but I was aware that it has been some time since I updated you.
I will confirm what decision the Board has made at the end of October, in the meantime, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Maddy Edgar, Senior Communications Manager, North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust Headquarters, Ladybridge Hall, 399 Chorley New Road, Bolton BL1 5DD
Explore Options to Save Link Centre, says Liberal Democrat Leader
The Leader of the Liberal Democrat Opposition Group on Oldham Council, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, has written to the Deputy Leader of the Council, Councillor Abdul Jabbar and the Cabinet Member for Social Services, Councillor Jenny Harrison, asking them to work with him to explore ways to save the Link Centre from being a budget cut.
Councillor Sykes said: “I was saddened to read that as part of the current round of public consultation over proposed budget cuts, that consideration is being given to the closure of the Link Centre – Philip Harrison House. I recognise that in the current financial climate real savings have to be made, but the Link Centre delivers unique person-centred services to a particularly deserving client group and these services may be impossible to replicate and so may be lost forever.”
“With people living longer more of us will live with disabilities and long-term health conditions will increase, more of us will also become carers to loved ones, so it is inconceivable that the demand for these services will not rise.”
Councillor Sykes has asked the two Councillors to work with him to explore whether the Link Centre could be developed into an independent living centre, based on the model of the Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living.
He added: “I recall private conversations with the late Councillor Philip Harrison, who impressed upon me his vision that the Link Centre should become a centre of disabled people for disabled people. This is empowering and would represent our vision that a Co-operative Council should be an enabler to help our residents help themselves.”
“Yes budget cuts are a huge threat to services but they also present us with opportunities to do things differently. The Glasgow model of service delivery is one that I think we should explore for Oldham on a cross-party basis with our officers and with the groups and individuals who also use the Link Centre, and those who in the future may wish to do so.”
Copy letter attached: Link Centre….
The Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living http://www.gcil.org.uk/
The Railway Garden, Dunwood Park, Sun 2 Oct 16
Free outdoor activities, 28 Oct, High Crompton Park
Letter re Implications of the EU referendum for Oldham Borough
The Rt Hon Teresa May PM, 10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister
Re: Implications of the EU referendum
Oldham Council considered reports on the implications of the EU referendum on this borough and Greater Manchester at its July 2016 meeting. This was in the context of the referendum result and consideration of the potential impacts of a “leave” vote by the GM Combined Authority in March of this year.
Regarding the referendum, we respect the right of the British people to decide on the country’s future relationship with the EU via this mechanism, but naturally we are concerned about the impact on business and consumer confidence, the various sources of funding the UK benefits from due to its relationship with Europe, and on community cohesion and community relations issues.
Business confidence is currently fragile as a consequence of the referendum, and requires urgent and co-ordinated local and national action to return it to its pre-referendum levels. We are working in concert with GM colleagues and local/regional chambers of commerce to this effect, but would welcome a dialogue with you about sustaining business and investor confidence in Oldham in a new and uncertain climate.
The recent Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic review sets out the scale of this challenge and opportunity, and we fully support the Greater Manchester case for continuing investment in the Northern Powerhouse project to make this a tangible gesture of confidence in the business community in the North of England.
Greater Manchester and Oldham benefit from significant structural fund schemes impacting directly on skills, employment and business support mechanisms which are essential to supporting our local economy.
We would encourage you to give urgent certainty to the Government’s position on non-contracted ESIF funds as part of the renegotiation strategy, and to the contingency plans the Government intends to put in place to secure equivalent levels of investment should these funds reduce or disappear as a consequence of EU withdrawal.
Local businesses and training providers are looking for such certainty. We fully support the Local Government Association’s call for local authorities to be involved in the renegotiation planning with such schemes in mind.
We note and welcome subsequent announcements from the new Government – your own in respect of continuing commitment to the “Northern Powerhouse” concept, and those of the Treasury in respect of European Structural Funds. Dialogue on both is ongoing between Greater Manchester and Government as you will know.
Finally we remain concerned about the negative focus on immigration matters and the consequences for community relations and cohesion in highly diverse urban areas of the North of England. We are vigilant on these matters, and wish to unequivocally support and nurture the benefits a diverse, tolerant and multi-cultural society brings to our economic growth and development. We would encourage you to give this matter the highest priority and to not give in to political pressures that risk disrupting many years of stable community relations in Oldham and similar areas of the north by giving any message to the contrary.
Yours sincerely,
Cllr Jean Stretton – Leader of the Council
Cllr Howard Sykes – Leader of the Opposition
What goes in what rubbish bin, and what cannot be recycled locally and therefore needs to go in the grey bin