A report by centre-right thinktank Onward, which suggested that Oldham’s tram has had a negative impact on the town centre, also analysed how some Oldhamers perceive the diversity of their local area.

Respondents provided evidence of tensions along racial and ethnic lines.

The report has been released just days before the 21st anniversary of the Oldham Race Riots.

The demographics of the two eight-person focus groups were split – one focus group was made up of those in the BC1 social group (managerial and professionals), and the other group was made up of those in C2D (skilled and semi-skilled manual occupations).

The groups had an even mix of Leave and Remain voters, as well as of people who voted Conservative or Labour in 2019 - with everyone living in Oldham borough itself.

One respondent in one of the focus groups said: “We let everybody from every nationality come into Oldham and treat it like a dump – everything’s taken out and nothing is put back.”

Another respondent was quoted as saying tensions “all stemmed from the riots… it’s 20 years later and nothing has changed”.

Another was quoted as speaking of “different types of cultures coming in… seems to have changed the dynamic of the area, not in a good way”.

When asked about how representative the focus groups were, co-author Adam Hawksbee, said: “The brief we gave to the market research company we used was to be representative of Oldham overall.

“To be completely candid with you, I cannot remember how the demographics were balanced as it was three or four months ago.

“I do know that we were a bit disappointed that they were not as ethnically and racially diverse as we would have wanted them to be, and so that might have had an impact on how some of those comments came out.

“One of the reasons we felt more confident putting that into the report is because when we tested  what we’d heard in the focus group with some local leaders, both from the council, from business, and from elsewhere, they didn’t recoil and say ‘that doesn’t sound like the sort of conversation we hear on the doorsteps’, they said ‘yes, that does sound broadly representative of some of the things that we hear.’”

Adam said, when interrogated, many of these comments were apparently directed toward members of the Roma community.

In April, the Roma flag was raised above Oldham Civic Centre in solidarity with the Roma community against anti-Roma racism.

Adam went on to say: “What was interesting was, without prompting, lots of people raised the legacy of the riots as not necessarily still present, but they talked about schemes that had been introduced in the wake of the riots that were meant to improve cohesion, and they’d raise that unprompted, which I thought was notable.”

The full report can be read here.