It’s called the #YourOldham festival because your money funds it and many of the speakers sizable salaries and Community Interest Companies

Oldham Council’s sizable marketing team is very good a offering free events to the Oldham public, these events are neither free nor about anything other than Council self-promotion. Following on from this theme we decided to publish details of the financial connections between just some of the speakers at the #YourOldham festival and their companies. In actuality the festival is a thinly veiled public funded Labour Party deprivation management policy promotion event and has little to do with the experiences of the majority of Oldham residents or service provision and spending in the areas outside the Council’s priority circle. The Epic talks series occurs during the hours the majority of Oldham’s contributory residents are at work. The event does coincide with Oldham council hosting a two day co-op council’s meeting and these people will make up the majority of attendee’s.

Anna Randle & Annabel Davidson Knight from London think-tank Collaborate, the company was paid £48,682 in the first 5 months of 2017 by Oldham Council to find ways to get the Oldham public to adopt the council’s coop ethos.
Andy Powell from Hack Oldham works in the six times over budget £1.2 million public funded digital enterprise hub, although building work is now complete Oldham Council still spent £16,271 within the hub in July. According to Companies House Hack Oldham was subject to a compulsory strike off notice and was dissolved as a company on the 29/11/2016. How this business can legally continue to use the Hack Oldham name and just what the legal and structural nature of the “Oldham Makers” venture is we have no idea. We do note that after years of using his full name as director of a host of struck off & liquidated companies he now uses just his first and last name as director of Oldham makers thus creating a break in the information link when conducting searches. click here to read the information on the companies House website

Liz Windsor-Welsh Chief Executive of Action Together, In the first 5 months of 2017 Action Together received £308,214 funding from Oldham Council. When we checked in 2015 Action Oldham as it was known then employed 15 salaried workers.
Oldham Council CEO Carolyn Wilkins salary £195,000, in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis she defended Oldham Council spending £160,000 on its new logo, yes that green and white circle which our logo mocks cost £160,000.
Oldham Council leader Jean Stretton will speak to you honestly from inside the Old Town Hall cinema the same cinema development she said on camera cost the Oldham public £26 million when records show it actually cost the Oldham public £35.5 million plus loan interest. She will talk about the independent quarter but not the businesses and anchor tenants who have shut down. She will talk about Prince’s Gate but not the £2.5 million wasted moving the Metrolink park and ride for an M&S store that never arrived. She won’t mention that the Prince’s Gate development, much like the Foxdenton scheme, which was sold on a business expansion model has become primarily a housing development after the retail element was cut by two thirds. She will mention plans for a new hotel but will not disclose the six figure public expenditure wasted on the failed Hotel Future scheme. She will mention the new Coliseum Theatre being built but not who is footing the twenty million needed to build it.