Testing for Coronavirus is still important, and is available through different channels here in Oldham:
If people are showing symptoms
If people are not showing symptoms but need to take a regular test (to meet local or national requirements)
Home testing
1. People with symptoms must self-isolate and arrange a test. These can be booked online at https://www.gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test or through one of Oldham’s three permanent testing sites. These are at Southgate Street Car Park (next to Oldham Library); Peel Street in Chadderton and the Honeywell Centre in Hadfield Street, Hathershaw.
2. People who are not showing symptoms but need to take a regular test, for example if they work in a front-line role or need a test for care home visits, can pop into one of our four rapid testing sites. No appointment is necessary. The sites are at:
Failsworth Town Hall – Opening times Monday to Friday 9am – 5.30pm
Oldham Leisure Centre – Opening times Monday to Friday 7.30am – 5.30pm Saturday 10am – 4.30pm
Shaw Life Long Learning Centre – Opening times Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 7am – 5.30pm, Wednesday 10am – 8pm
Uppermill Civic Hall – Opening times – Monday to Friday 8.30am – 5.30pm
Meanwhile, secondary schools and colleges can also carry out rapid testing on site.
Families with children at schools and colleges can also access home testing kits; either via schools or from any of our testing sites. Those unable to access a collection site can order home tests online here.
The results of the test, whether positive, negative or invalid, should be reported via the gov.uk website.
Two years on from its partial collapse, and after £300,000 spent making the site safe, the pile of rubble that was the historic St Paul’s Church at the corner of Rochdale Road and Crompton Way remains a blot on Shaw’s landscape, and Shaw Liberal Democrat Councillors think action by Oldham Council is long overdue.
Councillor Howard Sykes MBE has written on behalf of all three Shaw Liberal Democrat Councillors to the Leader of the Council asking for urgent Council action and funding to address the ‘travesty’ of St Pauls, reminding the Leader of his promise to the people of Oldham that the Creating a Better Place funding was to be used to make improvements across the whole of the borough, and that includes Shaw.
Councillor Sykes said: “With Council intervention, this site could be redeveloped as town centre housing. The existing main building could be repurposed as flats and the collapsed part as green space. The site lies within a few minutes’ walk of Shaw town centre and the Shaw and Crompton Metrolink Station. It is also a brownfield site and developing homes here will mean saving some of our irreplaceable Green Belt elsewhere from housing development.”
Since the collapse in February 2019, the Methodist Organisation who own it have attempted to sell it, but because of its listed status and planning requirements, the site is unlikely to be financially viable for any private developer.
Councillor Sykes added: “If this building collapse had taken place in Oldham Town Centre, I would have expected that the site would be rebuilt or regenerated by now, but because it’s in Shaw, it appears that yet again it has been overlooked. I am hopeful that Councillor Fielding takes my letter, and the people of Shaw seriously, and deals with this eyesore for everyone’s benefit. Shaw’s Liberal Democrat Councillors stand ready to support the Council to make that happen.”
The letter sent to the Leader of Oldham Council, Councillor Sean Fielding, on 9 March reads:
Dear Councillor Fielding,
I was interested to hear your response to Mr Arnott’s question at the December 2020 Council meeting, and your emphasis on using Creating A Better Place funding to develop the ‘whole’ of the borough.
I am therefore writing to ask you to give serious consideration to employing some of this funding to address the travesty which exists at the corner of Crompton Way and Rochdale Road, Shaw, a building which partially collapsed two years ago, required £300,000 to make the remainder safe, and remains a pile of rubble. The former St Paul’s Chapel.
This brownfield site would be ideal for development for some form of town centre housing. The existing main building could be repurposed as flats and the collapsed part as green space. The site lies within a few minutes’ walk of Shaw town centre and the Shaw and Crompton Metrolink Station.
Although the whole site is up for sale, it is highly unlikely to be sold due to its listed status and the need for work in relation to the collapsed section.
Potentially this site will remain a blot on the landscape of Shaw for many years to come unless some innovative work is done to develop it; in all probability the Council would be only likely organisation to come forward with the capacity and access to resources to develop it.
I therefore appeal to you to look closely at this site with a view to establishing a resolution to this sad situation and to commit to the people of Shaw to develop this site. Shaw Ward Councillors are ready to offer you every support in this endeavour.
As always happy to discuss before you reply formally.
The Oldham Liberal Democrats are disappointed that Chancellor Rishi Sunak has chosen not to make the £20 uplift in Universal Credit permanent in the March Budget.
Oldham Liberal Democrat Leader, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, who also serves as Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group at the Local Government Association, joined over 30 Liberal Democrat Council Leaders and elected Mayors in England in writing to the government on this issue last month.
Despite their plea to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak MP to respect January’s vote in Parliament calling for a permanent increase, the Chancellor has chosen only to extend the extra £20 per week uplift in Universal Credit benefit payments until the end of September.
Councillor Howard Sykes MBE said: “Millions of people are suffering in this country as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the uplift in Universal Credit has been a lifeline to them. Today’s news is a big disappointment. Yes, the uplift will continue to be paid for a further six months, and that is a small comfort, but in the autumn recipients of Universal Credit will be facing penury as benefit rates fall to pre-COVID levels. The Liberal Democrats shall continue to try to change the Chancellor’s mind, because the economic downturn and mass unemployment will not be going away anytime soon.”
Labour in Oldham voted against the construction of three health centres in Shaw & Crompton, Chadderton and Saddleworth, while voting to carry on spending more than £68 million on the renovation of Spindles shopping centre in the next five years.
Liberal Democrat Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani said: “During the council meeting, there was a very emotive speech by one of the Labour councillors about being unable to put money towards health centres while there was hunger in the borough. I don’t understand why that doesn’t apply when it comes to spending on shopping centres.”
The £68.3 million spending is in addition to the original purchase price for the centre, which was more than £10 million.
Councillor Al-Hamdani continued: “Regeneration of the town centre is vital. We need to have ambitious plans for Oldham. But the Labour Council hasn’t even finished its consultation on what to do with the Spindles, and yet it has already budgeted for the work it is going to do.
“Sounds more like Spendles than Spindles to me!
“They say they have provided ‘more detail’ to the Towns Fund on its plans for the Spindles, in order to try and ensure that they get that funding. Where has that detail come from, and does it allow for the public’s response to the consultation? Or is that consultation just a sham and they already decided what they are doing.
“The whole discussion seems riddled with inconsistencies. They are saying we can spend money on the Spindles while children are hungry, but we can’t spend it on health centres – health centres that were in the Labour’s Budget last year, but they have axed this year.
“It just leaves the Liberal Democrats asking more and more questions about how this Council is spending, or choosing not to spend, taxpayers’ money.”
Shaw Councillor and Liberal Democrat Leader, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, wants to see Shaw host a monthly farmers’ and producers’ market to ‘showcase’ local fare.
In his letter to Sara Hewitt, Oldham Council’s Markets Manager, he suggests that such a market would be ‘a new and exciting opportunity to shop and sell in our borough post-Lockdown.’
Councillor Sykes explained: “Oldham people have been turning more to local producers and suppliers for their groceries and household goods to help support local businesses and for the extra-special service they offer. Money spent with these businesses stays local and because everything is locally made and transported there are fewer food miles which is good for the environment. I want to see us capitalise on that loyalty by offering these producers and suppliers a ‘new shop-window’ in Shaw after Lockdown ends.”
Farmers’ and producers’ markets sell locally sourced goods such as meats, vegetables, cheeses, artisan breads, cakes and pastries, jams and preserves; beer, cider, and cordials; soaps and other fancy goods.
“Farmers’ and producers’ markets are very successful elsewhere and we already have one in Uppermill”, added Councillor Sykes. “Having a second of these markets in Shaw on one of our traditional Thursday market days every month would be a novel way to revitalise our local market which has been in decline in recent years and a new way to bring more people into Shaw for a great day out.”
Oldham’s Labour Council has against delayed agreeing its equality objectives, some 15 months after they were legally required to be updated – meaning that they are now unlikely to be introduced until well after the elections in May.
After numerous delays, they updated objectives were due to come to Council for agreement in March, but after an administrative error, they still have to go to be reviewed by four other bodies before they can be approved by the Council.
Local Liberal Democrat Councillor Sam Al-Hamdani said: “The Council’s equality objectives should be championing the needs of the elderly, the disabled, the poor and the working class – anyone who is disadvantaged, for whatever reason.
“For 15 months, the Labour Council has failed to support those people, by setting any objectives. If you are discriminated against, these objectives are supposed to be here to help you.”
The objectives must legally be updated every four years, meaning that the Council has not had anything in place since the 2015–19 objectives went out of date.
Councillor Al-Hamdani continued: “Another delay to this is ridiculous. I fail to understand how this Labour Council can have again failed to get this organised.
“I first raised this early last year, when I realised that the Council had missed the statutory deadline for updating the objectives. I was assured, repeatedly, that matters were in hand, and that it was merely a case of ensuring that the objectives and the strategy for delivering them were developed hand-in-hand. A year later, and nothing has yet come forward.
“Again, I ask the Council leadership, if you really care about equality and fairness, how can you not have brought this forward yet?”
All schools, colleges and early years settings will begin wider reopening of classrooms to all pupils from Monday, 8 March.
This is an important time for our borough as people increasingly move around, make journeys and interact with people again. The importance of managing this is key to avoid Covid rates rising in the borough.
Lateral flow testing is key to this managed return, and each school and college has a plan in place to test staff and young people three times in the first ten days back before home testing begins.
Young people and their families may be anxious and so the council have produced the following video with members of our youth council and Oldham College students to alleviate some of this concern. Watch the video online here.
Liberal Democrat Councillors Diane Williamson and Hazel Gloster have sent a joint letter to all of Oldham’s state-funded schools and colleges on International Women’s Day (8 March) calling on them to sign up to a government scheme which provides free sanitary products for low-income students. An inability to access or afford sanitary products prevents some students from attending classes. With the post-Lockdown return to education planned from today, this issue is even more important.
Councillor Williamson explained: “The 8 March is celebrated every year as International Women’s Day. The advancement of girls and women in our society has been greatly enhanced by their ability to participate in, and benefit, from education at all levels, yet the attendance of girls and young women from lower-income households at their school or college has sometimes been impeded by their inability to access sanitary products every month. This isn’t right – a bodily function should not prevent any student being able to access education as this can lead to an inability to access university or employment opportunities in adulthood.”
Both councillors proposed a motion to the September 2018 meeting of Oldham College calling for free sanitary products to be made available to school and college students and for an end to VAT being charged on sanitary products.
Councillor Hazel Gloster added: “In January this year we celebrated when the government scrapped the ‘tampon tax’ lowering the price on sanitary products, but were disappointed to hear that one year after the Department of Education introduced, as we suggested, a scheme to make free sanitary products available to schools and colleges that only 40% of those eligible have signed up to the scheme.”
Councillor Williamson and Councillor Gloster are hoping that their appeal will encourage more Oldham schools and colleges to take up the offer.
“COVID-19 has placed increased financial pressure on families, with 30% of girls reported to have been struggling to access the period products they need during lockdown”, Councillor Williamson concluded. “Ideally we would like to see every eligible school and college in Oldham sign up as the situation in a poor borough like ours is likely to be much worse.”
The rapid Coronavirus testing facilities continue at four centres across the borough. Tests are available for people who cannot work from home, who work with members of the public, and who are not showing any symptoms.
All public-facing staff are encouraged to get a test twice a week. Testing centres are located at:
Shaw Life Long Learning Centre, High Street, OL2 8RQ. Opening Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 7am-5.30pm. Wednesday 10am-8pm
Failsworth Town Hall, Oldham Road, M35 0FJ. Opening Monday to Friday 9am-5.30pm
Oldham Leisure Centre, Middleton Road, OL9 6AF. Opening Monday to Friday 7.30am-5.30pm. Saturday 10am-4.30pm
Uppermill Civic Hall, Lee Street OL3 6AE. Opening Monday to Friday 8.30am-5.30pm
