Political ‘hijack’ of local newsletter

Added cabinet quotes anger Tory

A newsletter distributed in Chadderton has been given a political makeover by the Liberal Democrats, it is claimed.

Conservative councillor Philip Rogers is angry that the latest August issue of the council’s Chadderton Local Matters leaflet contains quotes from two of the ruling group’s cabinet members.

He said these were not in the original version which had been due to go out in June, which would have been in time to promote the new district partnership and ward forum meetings before they started.

Chadderton has five Tory, four Labour and no Lib-Dem councillors. Councillor Rogers is the council’s “community champion” for Chadderton and had approved previous newsletters.

He said that he was not consulted about the changes to two stories and accused council leader Howard Sykes of making them to promote his cabinet.

The Chadderton North councillor explained: “I never put quotes in from any councillors and I never put pictures in of councillors, apart from next to their contact details. It is not about us as councillors, it is about the general public.

“As Chadderton councillors we had no say in this leaflet. It is not a leaflet for Chadderton, it is a Lib Dem promotion sheet and this is not on.”

Councillor Kay Knox is deputising for council leader Howard Sykes who is currently on holiday.

She said: “A system is in place for collating and publishing these newsletters which includes consultation with each community champion, like Councillor Rogers.

“The major change that was made to the content of the Chadderton newsletter was to include a story publicising Passport to Summer. This is an exciting range of more than 1,000 events which aims to keep youngsters busy during the holiday period.

“It can also have an important role to play in reducing anti-social behaviour and therefore was highly relevant to every district in the Oldham borough.”