Oldham, home of free-for-all building

LIFE AND OTHER BITS: DID the builders of Oldham’s latest green-domed mosque ever have Lego sets or even, going back a decade or two, Meccano?

Did they follow the instructions or did they make things up as they went along?

We can all make little mistakes but building a mosque that is five foot taller than the plans hardly constitutes a “little mistake”, especially for the people who live in the shadow of the monster building in Clydesale Street.

What is even dafter than builders being five foot out in their calculations is that neither Oldham Council’s planners, nor indeed its planning committee, seem able to do anything about it.

By rights the builders should be made to rectify their blunder and reduce the size of the mosque so that it complies with the planning permission granted for it. But councillors say that it is difficult now to insist that the original plans are followed.

Why? What is the point of having expensive planning officers and expensive councillors if builders can do what they want, ignoring all the rules and the quality of life of neighbours, who have to live with the consequences? It is not the first time that such planning cock-ups (accidental or deliberate) have happened in Oldham and been “reluctantly” allowed.

Oldham may no longer be the home of the Tubular bandage but it does seem to be the home of free-for-all building.


IT was no surprise to hear Tony Blair saying that the Freedom of Information Act interfered with good government.

Knowledge is power and politicians of a certain ilk want to keep all the power for themselves. We, you and me, are not only incapable of understanding, but have no right or need to know what is being done for, or more likely to, us.

Isn’t it politicians like Blair who interfere with good government, taking us into needless wars and running the country into the bankruptcy courts?

All we, the mere voters and constituents, want is to know what is going on.

Government departments shredded scores of documents when the FOI Bill was introduced, so that they couldn’t reveal important information for the simple reason that they no longer possessed it.

How conveniently underhand was that?


FINAL WORD: The deliciously-named Juicy Jeni clearly stars in Wayne Rooney’s away team but how many other names are playing with him, I wonder? A full team plus subs?