Chadderton receives £20m boost for high street and safety

As many as 55 towns across the country will receive a slice of the government's £1.1 billion 'long term plan for towns', which includes initiatives on cracking down on antisocial behaviour, protecting heritage and sprucing up the high street.

Adam Hawksbee, Deputy Director of the think tank Onward, has been appointed the interim chair for the new Towns Unit and explained the 10-year endowment-style fund will be invested "in line with community priorities" on three main areas to ensure that "town centres are still somewhere that people want to go in and spend time".

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For Chadderton, a part of the plan comes down to making sure the area is safe to walk around and a focus on "local connectivity", so residents can get around by bike or bus.

Speaking to The Oldham Times, Adam said: "In some ways, Oldham is where a lot of the thinking for the programme began.

"While I'm chair of this programme at the town's unit in my day job, I run a think tank called Onwards and we did some work about two and a half years ago in Oldham trying to understand, separate from the national agenda around levelling up, which has offered all kinds of big new motorways or railway lines or colleges, but the big capital projects from the bottom up at the local level and what levelling up needed to look like.

"In chatting to community groups, including Laura Welch, who is going to be chair of the town board, it was really clear what there needed to be was flexible funding at the local level that responded to immediate concerns if levelling up was going to be a success.

"So from that message from Oldham through to the programme today, it is kind of part of the inspiration there."

However, he also said how the £20m boost is spent in Chadderton is down to the town board to decide as long as it comes under the "three headings" of safety and security, local connectivity and improving the town centre.

He continued: "They will decide what sort of projects they want to prioritise.

"They don't need to decide the full £20m over 10 years but they may need to work out what they want to do with the three years of the funding, so the first £6m, but it could be a range of different projects - everything from fixing up some storefronts in the town centre through to sport and culture activities for young people."

The interim chair said he is most passionate about tackling and preventing antisocial behaviour, adding: "Lots of people when I say, 'How's the high street doing?' or 'How's the town centre doing?' say well, there are a group of kids that hang around in the town centre that might be drinking or smoking weed or whatever else and no one seems to move them along, no one seems to care.

"There needs to be some action on that, but actually there needs to be some place for those kids to move on to.

"They need an out-of-school sports club or a studio where they can make music or whatever else that gives them something productive to do.

"A lot of areas are focussing on that and I'm really passionate and excited about some of those projects that can stop people feeling intimidated when they walk out of their front door and also give young people who've engaged in those activities, something productive to have."

When asked about how the funding fits into boosting Oldham in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, when people don't necessarily have the funds to spend in the high street, Adam said: "The really key thing is that funds like this set out a plan to bring jobs, bring investment for them as an area.

"These sorts of interventions are more about jobs and skills and house building and the rest of it, some of it by the combined authority and the mayor, have to tie into some of the projects that will come through the long term plan for towns which are more about community resilience and community vibrancy."

He continued: "But if people are living in an area where they feel unsafe or they don't feel like they can get out to the job interview or get the tram or get the bus, if a local business doesn't feel like they can attract a client to get that investment because the high streets are a really dilapidated state, or even really simply, if there isn't a bus route or a cycling route that they can commute to that new job and that new opportunity, it isn't going to work.

"So really this programme is about the kind of social and community foundations from which that economic growth as jobs and investment can come."

Adam said in his visit to Chadderton that he hopes residents will get involved and engage with the town board to "try and address" concerns that arise throughout the next decade.

He added: "The call to arms is for the public to get involved and to find out about this town board, because it's not going to work without that."

If you have a story, I cover all things Oldham from food reviews and local business news to music and events, pubs, education, crime, property, health, community concerns and much more. Please email me at Olivia.bridge@newsquest.co.uk or send me a message on Twitter @Livbridge with your news.