In addition to the staggering 80,000 unrecorded crimes, Greater Manchester Police have failed to report figures on unsolved crimes to the Home Office since July 2019.

Nearly a million crimes have gone unsolved across the country in the last five years – that 80,000 unrecorded crimes alone would take the figure well past a million.

Local Liberal Democrat Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani said: “We have just seen Andy Burnham returned as Greater Manchester Mayor, taking on the role of Police and Crime Commissioner, despite the police being placed into special measures on his watch.

“If we do not see a complete change in what is happening in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham should not see out his term. It is residents across our Borough who are suffering as a consequence of these failures.

“Local police are not getting the support they need. That has happened for two reasons – unnecessary Tory cuts which have savaged the number of detectives, and failings in the senior management of Greater Manchester Police, which has resulted in the resignation of the Chief Constable; even though Mayor Andy Burnham has remained in place.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said: “Having suffered the distress and trauma of being burgled, hundreds of thousands of victims are left without the closure they need and the justice they deserve.

“This Conservative Government is letting down victims and allowing far too many criminals to get away with it. Liberal Democrats will do what works to build communities where people are safe and feel safe too.”

Councillor Al-Hamdani added: “Oldham Police need the officers, resources and time to focus on preventing and solving crimes. A return to proper community policing, where officers are visible, trusted and known personally to local people, would go a long way. That needs the Government to change course, and get new detectives in place, and it needs the Labour administration in Greater Manchester to deliver what it has failed to do in Andy Burnham’s first term.”

At a Group meeting held on 8 May, the Oldham Borough Liberal Democrat Group appointed, unanimously and un-opposed, councillor Howard Sykes MBE as their Leader and councillor Chris Gloster as their Deputy Leader. 

Councillor Howard Sykes said: “I am grateful once more to my colleagues for their unanimous support for my work as Group Leader and delighted that Chris will continue to serve as my Deputy.  It was great to welcome newly elected councillor Mark Kenyon from Saddleworth West and Lees to the team, and to welcome Diane Williamson back for Crompton. I was also more than a little pleased to be re-elected myself.  It was a shame that Garth Harkness will not be with us.  After last Friday’s results, the Liberal Democrats retain eight councillors and I know that all eight of us will continue to try to make a difference.”

“Liberal Democrats will be the only real opposition party holding Labour to account on Oldham Council.  We will work as a united team to offer common-sense solutions to the Borough’s problems and challenge the Labour Administration to cut waste and focus spending on the value-for-money services that the public wants,” added councillor Sykes.

“Labour is now at a crossroads.  With just 20 of the 60 seats up for election six Labour councillors were defeated at the polls, including their Leader; several more had some close calls.  Labour now must elect a new incumbent and it will be interesting to see who emerges as the winner from the contest.  I sincerely hope that that person understands that the Labour needs to make a major course correction to focus on what really matters.”

Councillor Sykes set out the Liberal Democrats’ priorities for Oldham Council:

“Council Tax payers hard-earned money should be spent on front-line services, such tackling fly-tipping and dog-fouling, repairing our roads and pavements, maintaining our much loved parks and green spaces, providing quality social care, and revitalising our district centres, not on civic centre bureaucracy or costly vanity projects, like £68 million on ‘Spendles’, that usually come in with massive cost overruns or frequently come to naught.”

“We also need to address the endemic levels of poverty, unemployment, educational underachievement and mental and physical ill-health that have festered for decades under Labour in our Borough, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a reinvigorated, innovative, multi-agency approach that gets residents out of poverty, skilled-up and into work.”

“We also need a new deal for our district centres, with new health centres for Shaw and Crompton, Saddleworth and Chadderton, an improved local retail and leisure offer, and local youth facilities, not just a single centre of excellence in Oldham.  Last but not least, we need to forsake the Royton incinerator project and Mayor Andy Burnham’s Son of GMSF ‘Places for Everyone’ plan, and develop our own home-grown plan with a Brownfield ‘first and always’ strategy to save all of our Borough’s irreplaceable Green Belt and green spaces from housing development.”

“These are our priorities because they are the people’s priorities,” he added.

A tiny “home” being advertised in Oldham for rental has been condemned by a local councillor as the worst example they have seen of substandard housing.

The “home” is a tiny garden shed with just enough room for a foldaway bed and a chemical toilet.

Lib Dem Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani said: “This is shocking. We have seen more and more examples of standards falling, with regulations being weakened to ‘increase development’ – unfortunately at any cost.”

The Housing and Homelessness Shadow Cabinet Member continued: “We recently introduced a motion to Oldham Council about housing standards that breach human rights. It seems unthinkable that we should have to do so.

“I cannot believe that people think that they can get away with this. This is no way for someone to live. This shows what happens when regulations are slashed and there is insufficient enforcement of the rules.

“This taking advantage of people who have no alternative.

“This Government must introduce minimum standards that stop this ever being considered again. We need more funding for brownfield development, and a proper housebuilding programme where those houses are needed.

“I am sick and tired of hearing about three- and four-bedroom houses on open spaces, instead of affordable homes on brownfield sites. This can change. It must.”

Come and try your hand at another day of dry-stone walling. This is the perfect opportunity to have a go, and learn how to take down and re-build a dry-stone wall within the beautiful setting of Crompton Moor.  

No experience is necessary, and all tools, protective eyewear, and materials will be provided. 

Please dress, according to the weather, and you will require stout outdoor footwear and work gloves.  Please bring a packed lunch and something to drink.

We will meet in Brushes Clough car park, on Crompton Moor, for a 10:30 am start.

If you have any questions, please let us know by email –cromptonmoor@gmail.com, or you can call us on 07792 156295. 

Kind Regards,

Marian Herod, Secretary – Friends of Crompton Moor, 07792 156295, www.cromptonmoor.co.uk

Many thanks to those who supported me.

It is appreciated – THANK YOU.

Also thanks to those who took the time to vote.

I continue to serve all residents of Shaw Ward regardless of who you voted for or if you voted at all.

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

Liberal Democrat Group Leader Councillor Howard Sykes MBE has expressed his disappointment at the ruling by the High Court last week that councils will have to end virtual meetings after the May 6 local elections.

“It seems crazy to expect councillors, staff and the public to sit down together for meetings of up to four hours duration, when Members of Parliament can still virtually attend sessions and when we are still unable to sit indoors for one minute in a restaurant or pub,” stated councillor Sykes.

Councillor Sykes is one amongst many councillors of all parties who are concerned that restarting physical meetings so soon whilst there are still restrictions on indoor meetings because of the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘out-of-step’ with the current reality and needlessly endangers public health. 

After Local Government Minister Luke Hall MP wrote to all Councils to say that they must recommence face-to-face meetings from 6 May, the decision was challenged by Hertfordshire County Council, Lawyers in Local Government and the Association of Democratic Services Officers, who brought the case to the High Court arguing  that the Local Government Act 1972 should be interpreted to allow for virtual meetings. 

Even the Minister for Local Government, Robert Jenrick MP, told the Municipal Journal that his department was “supporting the action…as we believe there is a case to be heard”.

Commenting, Councillor Sykes said: “I am not saying they we should not resume public meetings, but this is out of step with other restrictions and shows the contradiction the rules are.  It has proven entirely possible to take public questions and allow the public to view proceedings at virtual council meetings during the last year.”

The crass arrogance and ignorance of local Conservative candidates has caused further anger amongst the public across Oldham Borough.

Local Conservatives were told in no uncertain terms that using an outdated photo of Oldham councillors – three of whom had sadly died – on leaflets distributed in early April around Crompton and High Crompton was disgusting and likely to cause distress to family members and friends of the deceased.

Now, weeks later, the same image is appearing in leaflets being pushed through letterboxes by Conservative candidates in Saddleworth, the home of one of the deceased Councillors, popular former Mayor Derek Heffernan, who died in 2019.

Mick Scholes, Liberal Democrat agent in Saddleworth South Ward is demanding that the Conservative Party immediately cease the distribution of the offensive leaflet. 

To add insult to injury, the Conservatives are still to issue an apology to the initial complaint made in April. 

“We have had lots of complaints from the public about this and members of Derek’s family are very upset about the matter,” stated Mick Scholes.

Copy of original about this matter from Chris Gloster (Deputy LD Leader) Date: 19 April 2021

Oldham and Saddleworth Conservatives use hurtful image of deceased councillors in calling for cut in numbers they cannot deliver

Local Conservatives may talk of their respect and admiration for the late HRH Prince Phillip, but they have been hurtful and shown only disrespect in using an out-of-date image of Oldham councillors, which shows several elected members who are now sadly deceased.

Liberal Democrat Deputy Group Leader councillor Chris Gloster was disgusted when he saw on a Conservative election leaflet photographs of three councillors who have died.

Commenting, councillor Gloster said:  “The leaflet is in very poor taste.  Clearly local Conservatives do not care about hurting the feelings of relatives, friends and party colleagues of the deceased in using this out-of-date image.  Two of the three councillors, Susan Dearden and Brian Ames, sadly died in February and March 2018 and the third, my dear friend, former Mayor of Oldham councillor Derek Heffernan, in December 2019.  Getting an up-to-date image of the current 60 councillors would have been so easy but local Conservatives obviously could not be bothered.”

What makes the use of the image worse is that the Conservative election ‘promise’ not only represents breath-taking hypocrisy on their part, but it cannot be kept. 

“At every Annual Budget meeting of the Council from 2012 until 2020, the Liberal Democrats proposed a cut of Councillor numbers from 60 to 40 to save money.  The Conservative Group never did.  The reason we did not do so again in 2021 is that Councillor numbers in the Oldham Borough has been reviewed by the Electoral Commission in 2020 and fixed at 60”, added councillor Gloster. 

“When the Commission called for comments on councillor numbers late last year, the Oldham Liberal Democrat Group wrote back calling for a comprehensive cut in Councillor numbers to two from three per electoral ward.  The Council took a vote at its meeting on 4 November 2020 to propose to the Commission that councillor numbers remain at 60, the Conservative councillors present voted with Labour, the Liberal Democrats did not.  Against our wishes, the Commission stuck at 60, and now whatever the Tories might say it is now too late to do anything about it.”