I have been contacted by a number of constituents concerned about the proposal to demolish the Bowling Green public house on Manchester Road. The plans submitted seek to replace the current pub with a drive thru KFC and Starbucks.
I have been a longstanding campaigner for local pubs, I believe they are important to community life and the decline over decades across the country has meant the loss of too many neighbourhoods. It should be said that JW Lees as a local brewer and pub operator do a great deal to ensure the viability of local pubs, and that is seen in its number of thriving venues with investment across the borough.
In the North West alone we’ve seen a loss of 27% of pubs, and that number of repeated in the Oldham West & Royton constituency where we’ve seen 20 lost since 2010. But that in itself doesn’t tell the full story because smaller pubs which you would think about as the ‘traditional pub’ have seen a rapid decline of 25 closures (-38%) but larger pubs (employing more than 10 people) have increased from 10 to 15 in the same period.
For those who frequent the pub I have also provided a link to a scheme called the Asset of Community Value. The Co-operative Party, whose Parliamentary Group I chair, has been active in promoting the ‘Love it, list it’ campaign. https://party.coop/loveitlistit Beyond this application many community facilities are being lost, and they materially affect how it feels to live in a neighbourhood.
By listing them, though not offering unlimited protection, does give greater protection and rights for the community than had it not been listed.You can read more on Assets of Community Value here https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06366/
Today Oldham West and Royton MP, Jim McMahon, has backed Oldham’s campaign to Save Our Services, since the start of the pandemic Team Oldham have been working round the clock to do what needed to be done. They were promised that government would fund ‘whatever it takes’ only to have that retracted at a later date.
Jim said, “From the very beginning Team Oldham, it’s volunteers and the community sector have been the front line. They’ve been caring and providing for our most vulnerable and at-risk residents. It is simply unacceptable that central government would turn it’s back on Oldham and towns like ours across the country.”
“Government told local councils to do whatever it takes before they recklessly performed another one of their many U-turns and left Oldham with a bill of nearly £19m. It really makes me wonder how the government think they’re going to level up any bit of the UK if they can’t provide for towns in need in the middle of a global pandemic.
“They’re in for a short sharp shock if they think they’ll have any success without first supporting local councils to do their bit in a time of crisis.”
You can sign the letter and back the campaign here: oldham.gov.uk/SOSOldham
Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon made his first constituency visit since lockdown began in March, to Chadderton’s Butler Green House. The site located off Wallis Street in South Chadderton, provides enhanced intermediate care for those with short-term care needs; whether it be upon discharge from the hospital for rehabilitation or to regain independence or an admission from the community when a hospital setting isn’t the right fit.
Whilst visiting BGH Jim saw the hard work and dedication of the multi-disciplinary team, commenting after the visit, Jim said: “It was wonderful to meet with frontline NHS staff at Butler Green today, they have been working around the clock to support out community throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and they’ve done so with real compassion.”
“I heard some incredibly touching personal stories from staff where they have supported local people and their family members in their hour of highest need. Without a doubt our frontline healthcare workers are the very best of us. I am glad they’re starting to get the recognition they deserve, it’s about time they got a pay increase that they deserve too.
“At the start of this pandemic the government let our care workers and care system down, we urgently need to protect our key workers, like those here at Butler Green, by implementing a national plan to ensure supply chains are developed that guarantee PPE to all key workers and publish a plan to deal with the Winter flu season, it is likely that this year’s flu season will put our NHS under an even greater strain than usual.”
Vicki Elcock, Head of Services, Urgent Care at Butler Green House said, “I’m delighted that Jim chose to come and visit Butler Green House as his first outing. We’re all grateful that Jim came to visit us and talk to the staff about our experiences over the last few months.”
“This pandemic has been hard on all of us here, staff have had to deal with an immense amount of change in such a short period of time and it’s permanently changed the way we will work going forward in some cases.”
“So, thanks to Jim for coming down and listening to our stories and experiences, I know all our staff appreciated the visit and his thanks too.”
Here in Greater Manchester we urgently need the government to do more to help out locally, there’s almost 800 people still in hotels in GM and it can’t be right that they just be kicked out back onto the streets when the funding runs out.”
The action government took in March shows that rough sleeping in particular was a political choice, where this is a will to give people safe and secure accommodation there is a way. We’re nowhere near the end of this crisis, there’s a real danger of a second spike on the way and the idea that people could evicted into the streets is dangerous.
Government can start by ensuring that Greater Manchester’s A Bed Every Night Scheme is funded properly. So that it can provide support to all those who need it during this crisis and beyond. Since the start of this crisis we have seen the fantastic work that councils across the country and GM have done, and in particular the work that Oldham Council and Street Angels, have done here to help our homeless residents, so government must back them further.
Just after I’d finished filming the above video, the government announced that it was once again U-turning. This time it was on providing Free School Meal vouchers to children that need them over the summer holidays.
We must of course pay a massive thank you to Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford for using his platform to ensure so many kids get the food they need this year.
But the point still stands, there are too many kids in the position of needing this help. We’ve got to tackle the long term causes of poverty, to make sure that the number of kids needing this provision decreases.
It also needs to be said that government shouldn’t have had to make this U-turn, it should have done the right thing from the start and made sure that kids don’t go hungry. Society as we know it exists to prevent injustices like this, and it is shameful that it took as long as it did for government to see the error in its ways.
There are over 4,500 kids in Oldham West and Royton that will benefit because of this victory. I am grateful to all involved in forcing the government’s hand on this.
On the back of their successful webinar with Oldham based businesses, Jim McMahon MP and Debbie Abrahams MP are hosting an online support session for community and voluntary sector organisations based in Oldham and Saddleworth.
On Thursday 11th June at 12pm, Jim and Debbie will host the event. Panel guests will be Rebekah Sutcliffe (Strategic Director of Reform and Communities, Oldham Council) and Laura Windsor-Welsh (Strategic Locality Lead, Action Together) to help answer any questions you may have about support and to listen to concerns about the future needs and support.
Jim said, “We’ve all be blown away by the way the community and voluntary sector has responded to this crisis, Debbie and I wanted to host this event so we could say thank you for all the work that has been done in Oldham.”
“But also, so we could listen to what the sector needs going forward, I think for a lot of organisations involved in Oldham’s response there are grey areas and gaps in the support available. And we can’t let these organisations disappear, they’ve put in a monumental effort for our borough and it’s now our turn to return the favour.”
Debbie Abrahams, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said: “My experience as a volunteer whilst we’ve been in lockdown makes me more aware than ever about the incredible work the voluntary sector has been doing and the fantastic partnership working that’s been going on. The support that’s been provided has been a lifeline for so many people across Oldham and Saddleworth.
“Now, as we move forward, we need to see how we can better support our voluntary sector. Jim and I are determined to do everything we can to help.
“This webinar is our way to bring these incredible individuals and organisations together to see where, and how, we can do this.”
If your organisation would like to take part in the webinar please RSVP to jack.bailey@parliament.uk by 12pm on Tuesday 9th June.
I’ve marked World Bicycle Day (3rd June 2020) with a letter to Oldham Council encouraging them to look towards off-road routes for future cycling and walking infrastructure projects in the borough.
In my letter to Deputy Chief Executive Helen Lockwood, I have welcomed the funding that has recently been announced to bolster schemes in Chadderton and Royton, and point out possible developments of a cycle path along the Rochdale Canal to connect Oldham with both Rochdale and Manchester City centre and to utilise old railway lines as existing off-road routes where possible.
One of the biggest barriers to more people taking up cycling and walking is that they don’t feel safe. And whilst getting more people out of cars and onto a bike will help this, there can be no reason why we don’t look into alternative off-road cycle routes to reinforce this feeling of safety.
We’ve got to get serious about people using their cars less and less, and in order to do that we’re going to have to provide them with infrastructure so they can safely move around our town.
Another thing that will be really important to do to permanently change the way we move around is to increase support for school cycling training, if we build up the confidence and skills at an early age they’re more likely to carry on cycling even when they can learn to drive.
One of the most crucial aspects to this though, is that we need more bike storage facilities across Oldham and GM, it’ll be no good encouraging people to cycle instead of driving when there are no safe places to store their bikes but an abundance of car parks instead
For some time, it’s been clear that the impact of Covid-19 wouldn’t be evenly felt, and fears that some people would be more at risk because of the job they do, underlying health conditions or age group, and while much of that was covered by government early in to the lockdown, for instance by insisting on high risk groups isolating, some would take time to prove.
With the impact on care homes evident for all to see it was a failure too far that the government failed to give them the protection residents and staff needed, and it still isn’t right in many places even now.
Then we see the occupational impact which highlighted that people who were in most contact with the public would be most at risk; it sounds obvious but even today the government are failing to give key frontline workers the protection, testing and support they need.
Today Public Health England released a report on the inequalities of risk and outcomes of COVID-19. What the report shows is that for a number of reasons this disease does not treat us equally and that has profound consequences for many of us here in Oldham. The report confirms much of what we already thought, but it is noticeably silent on how we reduce the disparities it identifies. Having this information confirmed to us is an important start, but now is the time for action.
The biggest difference that the report found was in age inequalities, people who are 80 and older are seventy times more likely to die after contracting coronavirus than those under 40. Which just goes to show how important it is that we refrain from visiting our elderly parents, grandparents and friends at the moment as hard as it may be. Until the virus is properly under control, we cannot risk putting the people we love and care about at such a risk.
Data from Public Health England’s report also shows that nationally we’ve had more than twice the number of deaths in care homes than is to be expected, worryingly though just under half of the excess care home deaths have been attributed to COVID-19. Which either means there have been many excess deaths from other causes or that care homes are under-reporting the number of COVID related deaths. It may well be some time after this pandemic before we finally learn the true toll this disease has taken on our communities.
We already knew that this disease did not treat us as equals, but now we know that the mortality rate in the most deprived areas – like Oldham – is double that of the least deprived areas in the country. The survival rate in confirmed COVID cases in the most deprived areas are lower and these poor outcomes remain after adjusting for ethnicity too.
The truth is that if you’re a taxi driver living in Oldham and of Bangladeshi background you are several times more likely to be at risk than the general population, and that’s not right. We’ve also seen a constant list of frontline workers, for instance in the NHS and working in social care who have been directly affected, behind all of those numbers are families suffering.
We must also use this to trust our own instinct and judgement too. We knew those working in high risk occupations, living in overcrowded accommodation, and those in care home settings were at greatest risk but despite calls from local councils, charities and MPs action from Government didn’t follow. As the lockdown is eased more and more people are potentially at risk if we fail to provide the support and protection we know will make a difference.
Jim McMahon OBE MP 