Oldham Council’s “£60 million budget challenge” doesn’t seem to include Oldham Town Centre as they strive to acquire yet more Yorkshire St business premises. This time it is the Old Mess House pub in what appears to be a measured strategy to buy ex-licensed premises & change their use even though they can not find retail tenant’s in the main centre let alone the bottom half of Yorkshire St. Despite the media reputation of Oldham’s once busy Town Centre nightlife which only ever concentrated on the negative aspects both politicians & residents (of a certain age) alike forget that it used to contribute many tens of millions into the Oldham economy. The small scale of Oldham’s current night-time economy makes the Town Centre a far more dangerous place to socialise than when thousands visited in the past.
