Agenda item

(time limit 15 minutes)

Council was asked to note the minutes of the following Joint Authority and Partnership meetings and the relevant spokespersons to respond to questions from Members.

The minutes of the Joint Authorities and Partnerships were

submitted as follows:

Members raised the following questions:

1.    Councillor Toor asked in relation to page 91 GMCA 114/ 21 Clean Air Plan Update

Can the Leader please clarify and explain the reasons for Oldham participating in the Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan? 

Councillor Shah, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member

for Economic and Social Reform responded that working together through the GM Combined Authority, local coundils, including Oldham were under direction from the Government to introduce the Clean Air Plan and subsequent Clean Air Zone in the shortest possible time. This was to comply with legal Nitrogen Dioxide limits on local roads. All GM Authorities (the nine Labour councils and the Conservative Council in Bolton) had approved the GM Clean Air Plan and category ‘C’ Clean Air Zone because they had no choice bu tto act, not only because they had been told to do so, but also because many people in the city region were suffering ill health and even early death due to dirty air. However, the funding package provided by the Government was significantly less than required to install the infrastructure needed, support local businesses affected and to pay for the running of the scheme by the Government, meaning that, once again, the cost was left to be picked up by those who lived and worked in Greater Manchester. Alongside other GM Leaders, she was continuing to lobby Government for fair funding for the running of this scheme.

2.    Councillor Hamblett asked in relation to Health and Wellbeing Board 22/6/21 Item 8, pages 2-3 – Healthwatch Oldham Report – COVID-19: Your Health and Care Experiences Report

With reference to the Healthwatch report two issues that are repeatedly raised by constituents with elected members are

1. The difficulty in actually getting through to medical centre reception staff by telephone, with long wait times, calls frequently being cut off and calls not being returned,

2. The inability of patients to actually access in person appointments with GPs.

What is the Health and Wellbeing Board doing to address these issues of real public concern with medical professionals and surgery staff, and when can our constituents expect to see real improvements in the service?

Councillor Chauhan, Cabinet Member for Health and Social

Care responded that the issue was under remit of NHS Oldham and a detailed response had been requested which would be provided to the Councillor. This was a national issue which had multiple causes including funding. An article had recently been published where the Health Secretary had acknowledged he could not fulfil the manifesto pledge to provide 6000 GP’s and there had been cuts to training for nurses.   

3.    Councillor Al-Hamdani asked in relation to GMTC 42/21, page 8-9 – Electric Vehicle Charging Network

With plans for a new clean air zone to launch in May 2022 for Manchester, it is critical to ensure we have enough electric vehicle charging points in place to support existing and new electric vehicle owners.  It is estimated that we will need 3,000 public chargers by 2025, but we only have 323 in place at present and there are only plans to add 54 next year.

At this rate we won’t have a public charging network in place in 50 year’s time, yet alone in less than five. With the lack of action, drivers will have no means to move to sustainable transport and the clean air zone will be all stick and no carrot.

Can the Cabinet Member tell me what is being done to install more EV charging points more quickly in this borough and to put more pressure on the Greater Manchester Mayor and Greater Manchester Combined Authority to speed up installations across the city region?

Councillor Shah, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member

for Economic and Social Reform responded that Electric vehicle charging points in Greater Manchester were provided by many different operators. Be.EV was Greater Manchester’s publicly-owned network and was owned and co-ordinated by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) on behalf of all 10 GM local authorities, including Oldham. 130 of the 360 public charging points already available in GM were Be.EV charging points.

To help deliver the 3000 charging points GM needs by 2025, TfGM had ambitious plans to invest in the Be.EV network in the short term while we were waiting for commercial operators step up their networks. GMCA had recently published a GM Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Strategy which would guide this investment. Funding had already been secured for some additional chargers through the Clean Air Plan, with more rapid chargers and dedicated taxi chargers on their way, and TfGM was asking for more government funding to deliver more points - we were, for example, awaiting the outcome of a bid to the Government’s On-Street Residential Charge Point Scheme for a number of community charger hubs.

We were working closely with TfGM to expand the Be.EV network in Oldham.

4.    Councillor Sykes asked in relation to GMTC 43/21, page 9 – Network Performance Report

This minute refers to the increasing instances of crime and violence on the network, and regrettably many of these instances occur on the Rochdale – Oldham – Manchester Metrolink line. 

There are also more reports of children and young people taking their lives in their hands by ‘surfing’ the tram through riding on the couplings between carriages 

It is conceded that there is a minimal police presence on the network, so surely with passengers facing an increasing risk of attack, harassment, or theft and with the increasing risk of a child or young person dying through an act of juvenile foolhardiness, isn’t this the time to look again at improving public safety on our trams by introducing conductors as the Liberal Democrats first suggested three years ago in November 2018?

Councillor Briggs responded he had echoed these concerns at the last GMTC meeting when he concurred with the fact that a presence on the trams was needed. There been violence from the Manchester boundary as far as Rochdale. The Rochdale Councillor had agreed with Councillor Briggs at that meeting and they were waiting for a response as to what TfGM were going to do.  

5.    Councillor H Gloster asked in relation to GMCA 119/21, page 20-21 - Brownfield Housing Land –

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the most welcome, and much needed, establishment of a £1.8bn fund to build around 160,000 homes on brownfield sites as part of the funding settlement for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in last Wednesday's Budget.

Obviously more money for brownfield means less pressure on our irreplaceable green belt so my hope is that some of this money will come Oldham’s way.  Prior to the Budget, the Greater Manchester Mayor revealed how much extra Greater Manchester was going to receive for public transport, so has he revealed how much of this Brownfield Housing Land fund will be coming to our city region as well?

Councillor Roberts, Cabinet Member for Housing responded that it was correct that there was a headline announcement in the recent budget of £1.8bn to support housing supply. This included £300m locally led grant funding that would be distributed to Mayoral Combined Authorities and LAs to unlock smaller brownfield sites.  We had not received further information from the Department as to how much GM would receive.

There was also information about £1.5bn fund to regenerate underused land and deliver transport links and community facilities – again with further information to follow regarding allocation/bidding.

As you would expect, both GMCA would be doing everything they could to secure as much of this grant funding as possible for the region, and the Council would seek to secure funding to help support delivery of the much needed local housing supply, in line with a brownfield first approach.