(time limit 30 minutes)
Minutes:
Councillor Sykes, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Group:
Question 1 – CSE Report
My first question to the Leader tonight is on an issue that many people need much re-assurance on. That is that the report into CSE will be delayed yet again!
This is after previous delays in January this year and November 2021.
I agree that it is extremely important to ensure that anyone who is bringing forward evidence must be given the opportunity, and I am glad that the people in question now feel confident to bring forward their evidence.
However, it is vital that for public support in this process to be maintained, there must be a transparent process for the continued investigation taking place.
Even more important there must be clear support for the people who have already given their evidence and who have expected this report to be issued three times already.
Could the Leader of the Council please confirm?
What additional support is being given to those members of the public who have courageously stepped forward to give evidence, while this process is delayed again?
Whether the oversight board for the investigation has agreed with the extension of the investigation in this way? If so, why have they not issued a statement to help re-assure the public.
Also are there any strands of the investigation which are unaffected by the additional interviews, and whether the report could be released in stages, or as an interim report which would allow some of the survivors affected a degree of closure on this stage of their traumatic experiences?
In addition to the promised public meeting is now not the time that a special Council meeting also considers the report and that a special dedicated scrutiny panel/committee makes sure it is examined in detail and lessons and recommendations are actioned.
This special scrutiny committee/panel should report regularly to Full Council on progress and on any other matters it sees fit.
Question 2 – Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone
My second question tonight is on what can only be called the shambles that is the Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone.
Thank goodness the scheme has been delayed until at least July.
I do hope the Tory Government, Mayor Burnham and the 10 Leaders in GM have not just kicked the can down the road until after the local elections.
· Who decided that we needed a scheme that covered the whole of GM?
· A scheme would have a major impact on jobs and businesses?
· A scheme that treated air quality on Saddleworth Moor the same as in city centre Salford or Manchester?
· A scheme that excludes the motorway and trunk road network.
What planet where they on?
Did people not learn anything from the failed congestion charge?
Mayor Burnham must keep his manifesto promise to clean up air pollution in Greater Manchester without “the loss of a single job or business”.
This is something this Labour administration and others in GM failed to do first time round.
Even if people wanted to comply, they cannot as the supply chain just does not exist to deliver the conversions or new complainant vehicles in time and that assumes people can afford them! That situation will not have changed in July.
So, my question tonight is what assurance can the citizens of Oldham have that their interests will be championed and fought for by those who make the decisions about Clean Air Zone 2, if indeed we need one?
This includes the boundary of the Zone and the vehicles it will or will now not include? Also, that a realistic the financial support package is available for those impacted.
Or will ‘CAZ 2 the sequel’ just get pushed through quietly in the summer and you hope nobody notices.
Councillor Shah, Leader of the Council and Cabinet member for Economic and Social Reform, confirmed that implementation of the Clean Air Zone had been delayed and there was a need for all Local Authorities, across greater Manchester, to be fully compliant by 2026.
Councillor Sheldon, Leader of the Conservative Group:
Question 1 – Ukrainian Refugees
The World seems powerless to stop the war in Ukraine and the consequent problems that arise including the stream of refugees from the conflict zone. With this in mind, has consideration be given to using the old school buildings in Uppermill has a place of shelter for those seeking to escape the conflict?
Councillor Shah, Leader of the Council and Cabinet member for Economic and Social Reform, responded that this matter would be investigated.
Councillor Hobin, Leader of the Failsworth Independent Party:
Question 1 – Leaks of Information
Further to the question, I asked of the Leader, at the Council meeting held on 15th December 2021, could the Leader request that the Labour Member responsible for leaking confidential information, apologise to this Council meeting for their actions?
Councillor Shah, Leader of the Council and Cabinet member for Economic and Social Reform, responded that it was inappropriate to comment at this stage as this matter was subject to an ongoing investigation and had been referred to the Council’s Standards Committee.
1. Councillor Marie Bashforth asked the following question:
I welcome the decision to pay social care workers the Real Living Wage and am proud to have supported this – can the Leader confirm how the Council is ensuring care workers are paid the increase, how many of our committed care workers will receive the increase and what we can do to encourage other Oldham employers to become accredited Living Wage Foundation employers?
Councillor Chauhan, Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care, responded that Adult Social Care will work with the care sector during 2022 to understand how the fees paid for care services will need to be adjusted to enable employers to pay their staff the Real Living Wage from October 2022. We know that there are around 7000 people working in the care sector, and for those providers we commission with directly, we will incorporate real living wage compliance into their contracts and into our contract monitoring activity.
For those care providers operating in Oldham whose services we do not directly commission, we will be actively encouraging them to pay the Real Living Wage through our Market Position Statement and the fair cost of care work we need to undertake this year. It is also highly likely that in order to be able to recruit, those organisations will need to align their rates of pay to those of commissioned providers, and we will monitor this through our market oversight activity.
The Council will continue to promote the GM Good Employment Charter to all companies in Oldham to support the commitment to the Real Living Wage.
2. Councillor C. Phythian asked the following question:
Unfortunately, young people are on the receiving end of some very negative and unjustified press, that being said some behaviour is a cause for concern. Could the cabinet member responsible for young people, say how plans in Labour’s 2022/3 budget will help young people and their communities?
Councillor Moores, Cabinet member for Children and Young People, responded that, the budget investment will enable us to increase the youth work offer from our Youth service, enhancing what we already offer by increasing access to youth workers and youth work sessions across the borough – We will be able to have a formalised district team in place that will enable a minimum delivery of 15 additional youth work sessions per week (that’s 45 hours extra youth work each week). Each district would have 3 dedicated sessions per week (that’s 9 hours of extra youth work in each district)
Each District would have a named lead youth worker, who would support the development of the youth work offer, ensuring that we are able to deliver youth work opportunities matched to specific needs. This could be universal provision in communities that provides a range of positive and enriching activities for young people or targeted youth work interventions addressing a range of key themes including reducing youth violence, improving emotional wellbeing, supporting future aspiration or community based social action projects. This is additionality to the current established youth work offer. That includes our Detached team who deliver 15 sessions across the districts each week and Boroughwide team who deliver 5 evening sessions per week) The investment into the youth service will enable us to increase the number of core weekly established sessions by 75% from 20 to 35.
In total the youth service would then be offering 35 sessions per week on average. (this doesn’t include the additional youth work sessions we deliver each week as part of our more response-based work i.e., residentials, youth voice activities, one to one work, and specific, time bound - needs led projects)
The Budget will also see investment into the Mahdlo Youth zone of £100k taking the total annual investment to 300k, this will enable the continuation of the current Mahdlo offer and the delivery of their universal youth work sessions each day as well as a community-based youth offer from the team in each of our districts.
3. Councillor Davis asked the following question:
Could the lead member confirm that the popular Don’t Trash Oldham scheme where every entry will be cleaned up in the Borough, will be rolled out in Failsworth in May despite the fact that the Failsworth Independent Party wanted to scrap it in their budget proposals at the recent budget meeting?
Councillor Chadderton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Neighbourhoods, replied, confirming that the Don’t Trash Oldham scheme will be delivering in Failsworth East and West from 1st to 31st May 2022.
4. Councillor Woodvine asked the following question:
Thank you, Madam Mayor. As an accessible attraction for all our visitors to Saddleworth the Huddersfield Narrow Canal has been the victim of its own success - suffering from deteriorating surfaces along the towing paths.
I was interested to see that Kirklees Council, along with the new metropolitan Mayor on the other side of the Pennines, are investing £2.7million into walking and cycling along the sections of the same canal which also travels through parts of their Borough. This includes a 4.3km stretch. Please will Oldham Council commit to restoring this tourist attraction to its former glory and, along with the Combined Authority, find funding to complete the repair works necessary following the lead of West Yorkshire?
Councillor Chadderton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Neighbourhoods replied… thank you for bringing this to my attention. The Huddersfield canal remains an important and significant feature within the Saddleworth, Kirklees and Tameside landscape and as such officers are currently liaising with our neighbouring authorities to ensure that this remains the case.
It is great news that Kirklees has been able to secure funding to enhance the work that has already been undertaken and Oldham continues to look for opportunities to ensure that the stretch that runs through Saddleworth attracts further/continued investment in addition to the revenue funding that is already in place to maintain this section of the route at the highest level possible.
LIF funding bids were welcomed in 2019 and 2021 for projects that required capital investment - unfortunately no such bids were received for the Huddersfield canal. The Tripart agreement that Oldham, Kirklees and Tameside had with the Canals and Rivers Trust has come to an end: this has only recently come to our attention after making contact to pay the £95k annual payment. After several weeks on engagement and lack of response from C&R Trust, this week we have established the right contacts in neighbouring authorities – who have confirmed they were also unaware of the agreement coming to an end - and a meeting has been agreed for 2:00pm on 6th April 2022. We are really concerned that the end of the agreement could leave the council with the potential of a significant and ongoing cost - especially if anything was to go wrong with any of the bridges and structures or even the integrity of the canal itself. We will obviously report back once the meeting has been held.
Work is due to start on £2.7 million walking and cycling boost for two West Yorkshire canal towpaths - CityConnect (cyclecity@connect.co.uk).
5. Councillor Williamson asked the following question:
The Cabinet Member may be aware of a scheme where developers are trialling the use of nappies to make road surfaces last twice as long.
The project is being piloted in Wales, and it could mean fewer nappies are thrown into landfill. Fibre from nappies is added to bitumen gluing together asphalt road surfaces.
According to media sources the Welsh government is backing the project with £180,000 funding, and a stretch of the A487 between Aberystwyth and Cardigan in Ceredigion has already been replaced with the nappy formula road surface. The trial could also help offer a solution to the nappy waste problem, with about 140 million disposable nappies tossed in the bin annually in Wales. And anything that increases how long a highway surface lasts has to be a good thing.
The Liberal Democrats have suggested something similar where waste from unwanted plastic and waste tyres could be used in roads.
Would the Cabinet Member be opposed to approaching any of these companies to make an offer that would see Oldham’s roads trailed in a future scheme?
Councillor Chadderton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Neighbourhoods replied that Oldham was part of both the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and as such we are constantly collaborating and sharing information with our colleagues across numerus local authorities, Oldham Highways are not opposed to trying new products that are sustainable and reduce our carbon footprint by either extending the lifecycle of the product or utilising material that would otherwise go to landfill.
As part of Oldham Highways proposed new surfacing delivery programme 2022/23 intend to Trial a Rubber Modified Asphalt which incorporates the rubber from one tyre per tonne of asphalt, giving the potential to recycle about 500 tyres per kilometre of road, depending on layer thickness.
This product has been extensively tested and all the results look positive.
With regards the Nappies trial that has been carried out in Wales on the A487 between Cardigan to Aberystwyth which states more than 107,000 used nappies will be recycled, it would be prudent of Oldham council to wait to see how this material performs and to ascertain if there are any potential issues such as micro plastics or contaminated waste issues when removing the product at the end of its life cycle.
We will continue to collaborate with both GMCA and LCRIG to explore innovative ways to both extend the lifespan and reduce the caron footprint of the products that we use when carrying out resurfacing works in the borough.
6. Councillor Briggs asked the following question:
The Tory cost of living crisis is hitting families hard. Households in Failsworth are already beginning to receive letters advising them that their energy bills are set to increase dramatically. While the Government have done nothing more than give people £150 off their Council Tax bill, and a £200 loan which they will have to pay back through future energy bills, Labour have pledged that they would improve energy efficiency in 19million homes via the warm homes scheme, saving each an average of £400 per year.
Oldham's Labour Council has been running an award-winning warm homes scheme for many years. Can the relevant Cabinet Member advise Council how many households in Failsworth have benefitted from this scheme since its inception and what measures were implemented in those homes?
Councillor Jabbar, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Low Carbon, replied that over 15,000 households had received assistance from Warm Homes Oldham since its inception 9 years ago of which an estimated 900 households were in Failsworth. The measures provided include broken boiler replacements, first time central heating, loft insulation, wall insulation, windows and doors. In addition, the Warm Homes Oldham service has provided:
· Small energy saving measures, such as draught-proofing, LED light bulbs, and reflective radiator foils.
· Essential furniture, white goods and bedding packs.
· Minor home repairs.
· Advice on reducing energy use around the home and using heating controls effectively.
· Help with switching energy supplier or tariff, claiming the Warm Homes Discount, and registering on the Priority Services Register.
· Support with maximising income, claiming benefit entitlements, getting out of energy or water debt, and making trust fund applications.
7. Councillor Shuttleworth asked the following question:
May I ask the Cabinet Member responsible for planning to confirm: How many homes have been built within the Borough, or are in progress, during the last 12 months? How does this figure compare with the previous 12 months? How many planning applications have been granted for housing developments in the Borough over the last three years? How many such approved developments are yet to commence?
Councillor Roberts, Cabinet member for Housing, replied that given we monitor housing completions annually (April - March), we do not have a complete set of figures for the current financial year yet, and so our answers would still be the same as that provided in December. It might also be worth pointing out to Cllr Shuttleworth that housing completion data is publicly available on the Council’s website as part of our Annual Monitoring Report.
We can pull down the number of housing completions, planning applications, etc. for April-December 2021 if you wish, but this will not provide a direct comparable for previous years’ data, being only 9 months of the current year, so I would suggest we simply re-provide the answers given for the December council meeting for consistency.
8. Councillor Taylor asked the following question:
Used cars can be sold from showrooms or on-line and this is a growing business. Either way, the vehicles for sale need to be stored waiting for a buyer. In my ward a number of these types of facilities have sprung up. Some of these businesses are in residential areas and they can have a significant impact on residents. We receive regular complaints of roads being blocked when vehicles are delivered and inconsiderate parking on residential streets, and this is happening even when businesses describe themselves as being online only. Residents ask, have these businesses received planning permission and we are not able to provide a definitive answer
Could the relevant Cabinet please clarify a number of points: Is there a requirement for a facility that stores vehicles on open land to comply with any planning regulations? In planning terms, Is there a difference between a car storage facility and a car sales showroom? What limitations there are on an online business receiving customers to their premises to carry out business?
Councillor Roberts, Cabinet member for Housing, replied that the answer to this question depended on the circumstances of the individual case. Although in general, any new development for a scrap yard, breakers yard, and car sales showroom and forecourt usually falls outside any specific Use Class and will always require planning permission. Where vehicles are parked on open land purely for storage purposes, this would generally be considered as use falling within Use Class B8 (storage and distribution), but this would still require a planning permission where the land in question is not already in that use.
Yes. Exclusive use of land and/or a building for storage or cars would generally fall within Use Class B8 (Storage and Distribution) in the same way as any warehousing use or outdoor storage use would. Land and/or buildings used as a car sales showroom would always require planning permission (unless it already benefits from a historic established use).
If an online business relies upon a physical location in which to receive customers and carry out part of their business, then the land where that takes place would be treated no differently than if the business operated only in person/physically and was not online. Additionally, if vehicles are being parked on the highway they must be insured and taxed, and this would be a matter for the Police.
9. Question asked by Councillor Sharp
Thank you. Madam Mayor. The Roman Catholic Diocese have closed several churches in Oldham, they now stand empty and are being vandalised. The Sacred Heart Church Building in Derker is one of them. There are numerous rumours surrounding its future, one of them is the council intends paying to demolish the church and turn it into a car park.
Last year I placed an expression of interest into the LIF fund to turn the church into a community centre. Unfortunately, this was rejected. The Leader and Chief Executive will remember at the Big Conversation in St James, the strength of feeling regarding lack of facilities in Derker and an opportunity to explore providing further facilities to the community has been wasted.
Can the Council provide an update on this building and whether they support historic buildings being turned into car parks instead of facilities for the wider community? Thank you.
Councillor Chadderton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Neighbourhoods, replied that the Council supports the restoration and ongoing use of historic buildings throughout the borough wherever possible. The Sacred Heart Church building in Derker is not owned by the Council and we are not involved with any proposals/discussions in relation to the building.
10. Councillor Islam asked the following question:
It was very encouraging to see last year, the Council launching its own ‘Kickstart’ Programme, participating in the national programme, in creating job opportunities for young people. This programme was aimed at young people, between the ages of 16 -24 who are on Universal Credit. The Council agreed to take on 50 young people and give them 6 months paid job-based opportunity. This is a great initiative, and one that would go a long way in helping young people gain skills and work experience within the town’s largest and reputable employer. Please can the relevant cabinet member report the progress to date, including confirming the number of young people taken on?
Councillor Akhtar, Cabinet member for Employment and Enterprise, replied that Oldham Council has committed to creating 50 Kickstart placements. It created 67 and has to date filled 55. 15 have completed their placement with 9 progressing into employment or apprenticeships. The Council is committed to supporting the cohort through Get Oldham Working.
11. Councillor Surjan asked the following question:
Can the relevant cabinet member please give an update on the issues around pavement parking and speeding in the Westwood and Chadderton areas?
Councillor Chadderton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Neighbourhoods, replied that problematic Pavement Parking and Inappropriate Speeding were not only issues experienced in some parts of Chadderton and Westwood but they occurred across the borough, around other Greater Manchester areas and indeed across the whole country. Traffic and Road Safety officers are committed to managing the demand for residential street parking whilst at the same time reviewing the speed of vehicles in built-up residential areas.
We are awaiting the conclusion of the Department for Transport’s Pavement Parking – Options for Change Consultation carried out in 2020 – following which we will accelerate appropriate policies and strategies to best tackle problematic pavement parking in line with the new Governmental guidelines.
On the matter of tackling inappropriate speeding - officers will continue to work with Greater Manchester Police in the roll out of the new Speed Complaints Process.
Specifically, with regards to Westwood, officers will continue to work closely with residents and elected members in their joint commitment to develop a successful Active neighbourhood scheme.