Residents face ‘lowest’ 3pc rise

COUNCIL tax is set to rise by at least £30 for residents in Oldham but bosses say it will be the lowest increase in Greater Manchester.

The cabinet has recommended an increase of 2.99 for the next financial year, which includes a 2pc rise in the adult social care precept.

For a Band A property this would be a monthly increase in bills of £2.78, before parish council or mayoral precepts are added on top.

Town hall chiefs also agreed to make savings of £8.9m in 2021/22, which includes slashing the budget for youth charity Mahdlo by £100k and closing Gallery Oldham one day a week.

The savings are part of measures to close a £27.6m hole in the local authority’s budget for the next financial year. The proposals will be voted on at a meeting of the full council tomorrow.

Council leader Sean Fielding told the meeting that they had originally planned to meet a budget gap of £23m but because the government ‘didn’t make good on its promise to reimburse us the cost of responding to Covid’ that had increased to nearly £28m.

SO it comes to light that MPs can spend an extra £10,000 on equipment to enable them to work from home during the Covid pandemic.

I would have thought that most, if not all, of them would already have this in place?

So 640 MPs x £10,000 each is £6,400,000 – quite a lump, isn’t it?

P Meakin,

Salford

Match words

NEW research by the International Energy Agency shows that fossil fuel emissions climbed steadily over the second half of the year as major economies began to recover.

By December 2020, carbon emissions were 2 per cent higher than in the same month the year before.

There will be enormous and understandable pent-up demand for international travel, and for a return to ‘normality.’ But the old normal was – and will – lead us to disaster.

What is needed is a fundamental cultural, political and economic shift. These things do not happen overnight, and we should have started decades ago. Instead we allowed our leaders to make soothing promises, and then failed to keep tabs on whether the promises were being kept (they were not).

Manchester council has a chance to break this cycle. Ahead of its full Council meeting on Wednesday, March 31, it can propose and then vote for strong scrutiny mechanisms, so that the emissions of the whole city come under the microscope. In the past two years, Manchester burned through a quarter of its carbon budget for the entire 21st century. Covid will not save us from the horrible maths. Only strong, committed leadership, and a relentless focus on keeping promises offers young people any hope.

We can write to our councillors to demand this leadership. We can keep tabs on whether they match fine words with actual deeds.

Marc Hudson, Editor, Manchester Climate Monthly