Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon and the Councillors Phythian & Hannah Roberts Royton North and Councillors Marie Bashforth, Steven Bashforth and Amanda Chadderton in Royton South plan to object to the Energy Recovery Facility on Mossdown Road once the consultation period begins.

The plans for the 55m tall facility are due to be submitted to Oldham Council’s planning department any day now, but ahead of that Royton’s representatives have voiced their concerns. 

Jim McMahon said, “After meeting with the developers, studying the material they have produced in support of the planning application, and looking at the application itself, I cannot support the proposals. Previous attempts to build a similar facility on the same site have been refused by planners at Oldham Council and I’ll be urging them to refuse this one too.”

“The current plans indicate the facility will be as tall as 12 double-decker buses and plans that were previously submitted and refused were for facilities one-fifth of the size. The visual impact that this would have on the area – and the wider borough once the chimney stack and exhaust gases are factored in cannot be overstated.”

“Likewise, I remain unconvinced that the traffic impact the facility will have on the surrounding roads has been considered in the right way. And given the disruption and impact the site would have only providing forty jobs once up and running does not even begin to mitigate against that”

Cllr Amanda Chadderton, Councillor for Royton South, said “The size of this facility makes it impossible for us to do anything but strongly oppose it, compared to the surrounding buildings it will be mammoth.”

“We all have real genuine concerns that not enough consideration has been given to the number of heavy-goods vehicles that would be coming in and out of the site.”

“With Broadbent Moss earmarked for development too, I can’t foresee a situation where this doesn’t massively impact the likelihood of people wanting to live there.”

Cllr Hannah Roberts, Councillor for Royton North said, “The proposed building is too big and in the wrong place. It would dominate the Beal Valley and surrounding homes as well as increasing traffic in the local area.”

“These new proposals are even more unacceptable than the previous planning application which was refused, and I support the call to turn down this new application when it is considered”

“We have lost millions of miles of bus routes and millions of bus journeys over the last ten years, with a franchise system we can reinvest the money previously taken by bus operators as dividends into new routes that take people where they need to be. The truth is that the deregulated model was meant to improve competition, it has done nothing of the sort. In some instances, it has left people with no bus service at all.”

“I fully support the introduction of a franchised bus network, to deliver local control of our buses, to simplify ticketing and bring down prices, deliver vital community bus routes and reinvest in our bus fleet to make it cleaner and greener.”

Oldham West and Royton MP & Shadow Transport Secretary has today submitted his response to the GMCA consultation Doing Buses Differently: The impact of Covid-19 on our proposals for the future of your buses and once again urged Greater Manchester to press ahead with bus franchising.

In his letter the MP describes the current bus network as a result of bus regulation in the 1980’s ‘a failed experiment that has only benefit the bus operators, and not those who use the system’. Jim is also encouraging everyone in Greater Manchester to respond to the consultation using the Better Buses for Greater Manchester tool which only takes a few minutes.

Speaking afterwards the Oldham MP said, “Now is absolutely the time to press ahead with moving to a franchise model in Greater Manchester, every week and month that passes increases the prices that the people in our city-region will have to pay for inadequate bus services.”

“I had the opportunity to sit down recently with Transport for Greater Manchester to discuss the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on bus services and our plans in Greater Manchester and I am convinced that franchising is still the best option.”

“If the government is serious about its commitment to the North and rebuilding after the pandemic, it should absolutely commit helping Greater Manchester transition to the new franchised system as bus services are vital to our city-region and it’s economy.”

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Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon has nominated his constituency Office Manager, Shirley Buckley for a Special Award for Connecting Communities at the Parliament’s People Awards, and the Oldham resident has made the final shortlist of three ahead of the winners being announced on Monday 25^th January. The unique Openreach Special Award for Connecting Communities is designed to recognise the extra mile that people that work for MPs do to support their communities and society.

Shirley has been Jim’s Office Manager since he became the Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton in 2015, and before that worked for Michael Meacher MP since the late 1990’s. Her commitment to social justice and equality shines through in her work ethic, and the fact that she gives her undivided attention to every constituent and case that crosses her desk.

One of Shirley’s many accomplishments over the years is the work she did in supporting Jim to secure a statue of Oldham’s own suffragette, Annie Kenney, now standing proudly outside the Old Town Hall in Parliament Square.

Jim said, “Shirley is the heart and soul of the constituency, she has helped literally thousands of people over the years and her dedication to helping me and the rest of my team is unquestionable.”

“The truth is there are thousands of people in Oldham who Shirley has helped without them knowing that she was the one helping them, she has dedicated the last 25 years to trying to make the lives of Oldhamers better and she was vital behind the scenes in helping us bring Annie Kenney back to Oldham.”

“She deserves every possible recognition and I’m so pleased that she’s made it to the shortlist for this award. She is integral to the way my constituency office runs and her support over the last five years has been invaluable.”

Shirley Buckley said, “I was quite shocked when I got the email to say I’d been nominated and shortlisted, Jim and everyone else in the office kept it quiet that I’d been put forward so I was a little taken aback and didn’t quite know what to make of it.”

“I’m really pleased to have got this far, I don’t expect any awards for what I do. I just see it as doing my job and trying my best to solve the problems people have when they come to their MP.”

5 years ago today I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons, in a debate titled ‘The Cost of Public Transport’ – how appropriate given my currently role as Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary.

A maiden speech is the first opportunity a new Member of Parliament gets to speak in the Chamber, traditionally Members pay tribute to their predecessors and talk about the place you have been elected to represent, they’re usually light-hearted and a chance for some lesser known stories from local history to be shared, which I tried to do with the story of Royton Town Hall’s very own gunpowder plot.

In mine I paid tribute to the late Michael Meacher, he was a dear friend of mine and to the people of Chadderton, Oldham and Royton, he served our town with distinction for 45 years and will be missed and remembered locally by many people for all work he did to try and make Oldham a better place and to help the people of our town.

I was then, just as I am today, grateful for the trust that the people of Oldham West and Royton placed in me as electing me as their representative in Parliament. The Borough of Oldham played a pivotal role in the history of our country, our town was after all the King of Cotton. At its height there were 17million cotton spindles spinning in our town, which was more than in the whole of the United States and 80% of the total number of spindles in the UK.

But the history of our town is not all sunshine and roses, the truth is that people were exploited in the making of our town; people came to Oldham for a better life, but sadly they struggled in poverty whilst a lot of the money they generated left our town and the slaves picking cotton in the American south faced unimaginable exploitation.

And sadly, today for too many in our town work does not pay and they are still struggling to make ends meet. The last ten years have seen living standards, a welfare state that supports people when they need it and decent homes and jobs have all been eroded.

The battles of the North-South divide I warned about in my maiden speech half-a-decade ago still ring true today, power must be moved away from Whitehall to empower communities, rather than simply moving power from central government to another layer of government. If devolution is to be a success in this country, we need to bring people with us in a co-operative manner.

Thank you to everyone I have encountered over the last five years as the Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton, whether we met on the doorstep, at a constituency surgery, in the street or in the supermarket, these little encounters stay with me more than you may realise and you sharing your lived experience of our town has helped me represent everybody in Parliament better.

Oldham West and Royton MP and Chair of the Co-operative Party Jim McMahon is encouraging Oldhamers who are either working in the retail sector or friends and family of those who are to take part in a questionnaire ran by the Home Affairs Select Committee.

The Select Committee is holding an inquiry into the abuse and violence experienced by those working in the retail sector, and as a result they want to hear from those who have experienced these incidents first-hand. Shopworkers or their friends and family can take part in the anonymous survey by following this link: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=nt3mHDeziEC-Xo277ASzSjmyhv4Lz8tPuToBKZcY2O9URjQ3MDVHSDhIQlE0OTBSWFVLVjRWNFhVTC4u&fbclid=IwAR2jlyXujF8ng6JH0z0cY2MHrkhLrW__VQP0suDLiqE2cjyWmyoajxHRURE

Jim said, “All too often people working in shops in Oldham are faced with abuse and assault that quite frankly isn’t part of the job.”

“I’d like to encourage all shop-workers in Oldham to take part and highlight their experiences in the survey before it closes on Friday – which should only take a few minutes to complete.”

“People working in our shops are literally keyworkers keeping our country going and making sure we all get the food and other supplies we need, the fact that incidents of abuse have increased since the start of the pandemic is shocking.”

“I’m hopeful that this inquiry by the Select Committee will finally push the Government to act as so many shopworkers and those in the retail industry have been doing for months now.”

“I’ve organised a meeting with Deputy Mayor Bev Hughes with other MPs tomorrow to discuss what we can do here in Greater Manchester to combat the rise in abuse and assaults of our shopworkers.”

Shortly before Christmas, Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon donated 100 supermarket crates to Oldham Foodbank, the donation worth £300 in total came after the foodbank issued a call to action urging anyone who had any of supermarket crates whether they’d be able to borrow them for the Christmas period and return them in January.

Jim saw the tweet and immediately set about trying to source the crates and get them to the foodbank as soon as possible. After a few phone calls to a supplier and the foodbank, it was all arranged, and they were picked up that very same day.

Speaking this week, Jim McMahon MP, said; “This Christmas we were going to make a donation to a local charity with the money that we’d usually spend on Christmas cards and then after seeing the foodbank issue this plea it made sense to try and help them in this way.”

“I was more than happy to contribute and facilitate getting the crates to them as soon as possible, the work the foodbank does for our community is so important in normal times, let alone during a crisis. I really appreciate the work the foodbank does so this was my way of giving something back and saying thank you.”

“I’m especially glad that we managed to get it turned around so quickly and get them the crates the same day they put out the appeal, I hope they helped during the busy Christmas period. And a special thanks to my team who worked to source the baskets and arrange the pick-up.”

Huge thanks to @jimfromOldham for his incredibly generous donation so we could buy essential crates to continue our work over the Christmas period, they were an absolute life saver! #WeCanHelp #TeamOldham pic.twitter.com/XvrhJF0I24

— Oldham Foodbank 🦉 (@OldhamFoodbank) January 6, 2021

Not for the first time during the pandemic the Government have been unwilling to answer a question put to it by Oldham MP Jim McMahon, this time on the number of Covid-19 tests that have gone missing. After hearing concerning stories from constituents and local councillors about people having Covid test, never getting the results and then being told that it’s likely that the test has gone missing, Jim was eager to find out how common a problem this was nationally and whether Oldham was disproportionately impacted.

So the Oldham West and Royton MP decided to ask the Government, ‘How many completed Covid-19 tests have gone missing (a) nationally and (b) by local authority?’ A Health Minister responded to the Written Parliamentary Question last week by saying, “We do not publish data in the format requested.”

Jim said, “I was really concerned when I heard multiple stories of people being told the reason they hadn’t got their results back yet was because it was probably lost.”

“People having to take multiple tests because the first one goes missing is not an efficient system at all, it creates delays and increases the demand on the testing service needlessly. Given the billions that the government has spent on the test and trace system I think the public have a right to know the scale of any issues it’s having.”

“And ‘not publishing’ the data is not the same as not holding it, time and again the government have ducked and dodged being transparent. It really does make you wonder what has the government got to hide about missing Covid-19 tests.”

“We know that Oldham has been hit hard by the pandemic, we’ve had some of the highest infection rates in the country at some point and you begin to wonder how much better our town could have fared if we had a working test and trace system.”

Following a hospitality roundtable held with local businesses and a panel of experts last week, Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon has today written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock urging the government not to allow hospitality businesses in Greater Manchester to become an ‘afterthought’.

During the meeting, attended by Greater Manchester Night-time Economy Adviser Sacha Lord, Oldham Council’s Director of Economy Emma Barton, William Lees-Jones of JW Lees Brewery, and John Townsend, an Oldham based business and financial adviser, it became clear that one of the biggest worries for Oldham’s hospitality and leisure industry is time.

Businesses have been left in the dark about what their future looks like for weeks.  In his letter, Jim asks government for an ‘early indication of its intentions’ so that businesses in Oldham, and across Greater Manchester, are given some much-needed time to plan and prepare for a potential re-opening.

He said: “This is the third letter I’ve written to Secretary of State about our experiences on the ground here in Oldham since August. I’ve not received a reply to the others yet but I’ll keep making our case regardless.

“Our pubs and bars play a vital role in our communities – we would not be the same without them.  So it is vitally important that government gives them the clarity they need as soon as possible.

“Many businesses in the hospitality industry have spent thousands of pounds to ensure their venues are Covid secure, they have jumped through every hoop and abided by every new rule imposed upon them, and often at short notice.  So my message to government is simple: don’t let our pubs become an afterthought.”

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