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I took the opportunity to meet with the wonderful volunteers at Oldham Street Angels to see the work they do to help homeless people in our community.

Homeless people too often fall through the cracks and have complex problems. I heard many personal stories and it is clear to me that if we fail to support people to get back on track and live a stable and productive life, we always pay more as a society in the end. Meanwhile more lives are ruined as a consequence of not taking joined up and meaningful action.

The project supports anyone who presents and does so without judgement, and without fear or favour. They just want to show that society doesn’t turn its back on people when times get hard.

Although they routinely signpost people to seek further support and they do offer advice, they are deliberately not replicating formal public services, or that which requires professional support beyond its volunteer base. The group have received support from Mayor Andy Burnham’s homeless scheme, as well as locally though the health authority and council, and kind public donations too.

They are represented significantly by local faith groups who work together as a network to bring volunteers together and add capacity.

The group also provide night-time support on a Friday and Saturday to support the night-time economy, ensuring visitors are kept safe. It was for this and other work they were awarded the Queens Award for Voluntary Service, which is billed as the MBE for groups.

Keep up the good work!

Oldham is home to thousands of Kashmir heritage people, though it is thousands of miles away for those who have family connections it is something which matters a great deal.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found breaches in both Pakistan and India administered territory. While the UN reported that Pakistan had accepted the findings and agreed steps to investigated, the Indian government dismissed it out of hand.

The greatest concern remains that in Indian controlled Kashmir, human rights abuses, suppression, and limitations on freedoms. Today marks the second anniversary of the 2019 lockdown and media block out and it is an important day for a number of constituents.

As a local MP it is right that we make representations to Government through the Foreign Office on international relations and I will continue to do so together with my fellow Oldham MP Debbie Abrahams.

The sun was shining on Royton Park this afternoon as Oldham Play Action Group present a special Thank You to Rose, who founded the group 40 years ago.

They’ve done so much for our community and today easily over a thousand youngsters and parents attended throughout the course of the day.

The day was possible because of the great support from councillors for the event.

Today I spent the morning visiting some new co-operatives in Greater Manchester, it was fantastic to see how these enterprises are thriving even during hard times.

As Chair of the Co-operative Party I was keen to get out and visit co-ops within our movement to see how they were getting by and to highlight the great work of enterprise within our collective movement.

We need more co-ops to help build a fairer economic and social settlement for everyone.

Many thanks to the Chorlton Bike Delivery Co-op for talking me through your plans for development and to the Carbon Co-op and People Powered Retrofit for hosting me and showing off your model house!

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You can read a more in depth blog post from me here on the Co-operative Party’s website: https://party.coop/2021/08/06/co-operatives-arent-just-surviving-in-this-crisis-they-are-thriving/

Had a fantastic time visiting the National Logistics Academy at Mantra Learning yesterday morning to see the brilliant work they’re doing to combat the huge HGV driver shortage that we face.

It’s clear that the Government should be doing much more to combat the driver shortage and come up with a clear plan that doesn’t just move a bottle neck from one part of the sector to another.

Yesterday I heard about how the Government’s plans to recruit more examiners means that places like Mantra are at risk of losing their highly skilled instructors.

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Great to join the team out in Busk area of Chadderton. We are growing volunteers who want to improve our town all the time. We picked up serious dumping taking place off Chancery Street which will need a plan to sort out, and hopefully we will have news to report soon.

The Labour council are doing great work and have pledged an additional £1.27m to clean up Oldham.

A ward by ward deep clean up, expected to start in September.

Five new street cleaners – Dandy cart operators – employed to pick up litter and waste.

Two new fly-tipping clearance crews – four staff in each team – who will remove dumped rubbish.

Five new Environmental Marshals who will carry out enforcement work and engage with communities on other issues.

Two new trucks to make sure street waste is picked up quicker.

Councillor Arooj Shah, Leader of Oldham Council, said: “Residents keep telling us they are sick of people fly-tipping, dumping waste and littering. That’s why when I took over as leader, I promised we would invest more money making sure our streets are clean, despite continued cuts to our budget.”

As Labour councillors and your local MP we don’t just want to say what’s needed to improve the town, we believe in rolling our sleeves up and getting involved.

Let’s all do our bit to help #loveoldham

Wonderful community spirit for the annual Chadderton Day at Foxdenton Park with the Mayor Of Oldham Cllr Jenny Harrison, her consort Cllr Shaid Mushtaq and Chadderton Central Councillors’ Moores, Taylor and McLaren.

It was great to see the hard work of local councillors and community volunteers has paid off with the opening of a new café named after suffragist Lydia Becker, who lived at Foxdenton Hall.

The tea room is always looking for willing volunteers to help out.

After morning meetings it was a real tonic to attend one of our regular clean up events. Residents around Kimberley Street, Hollinwood mucked in to really make a difference.

I’m so proud of our town and the people who make it a great place to live. We know we have some people who don’t take the care we deserve, and littering and fly tipping has gone too far in places. But the vast majority of decent people shouldn’t have to live with it.

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By working together as one community we can make big jobs like alleyway clean ups easier to do. But we need those landlords, residents and businesses who contribute to the mess to step up. If not the council will need to make an example out of more people whose actions ruin the town.

I am really pleased to see the council pledging more investment in street cleaning and getting the basics right. We all deserve to live in a clean and safe neighbourhood and every child should have somewhere to play safely too.

We’ll keep going, and I hope more and more join the march to clean up Oldham with us #loveoldham