Business award boost for youth-zone project

All smiles . . . (from the left) June Smith, Jim Williams, Terry Flanagan, Lee Crook and Steve Kilroy

OLDHAM’S youth zone project has received a boost from the One Oldham Business Awards.

Guests at the dinner, held in association with the Oldham Evening Chronicle, raised £2,853 for the Mahdlo project, which is aiming to open a lads’ and girls’ club in Oldham town centre by 2011.

The cheque was presented to Mahdlo representatives Terry Flanagan and Chronicle Editor Jim Williams by members of the One Oldham Business Awards steering group members June Smith, from Oldham Council, Lee Crook, from NatWest Business and Commercial Banking, and Steve Kilroy, from BAE Systems.

Mr Crook is also a member of the Oldham Business Leadership Group (OBLG), which has also adopted Mahdlo as its charity.

A group of 14 business leaders drawn from the borough’s spectrum of industries and commerce, the OBLG is chaired by Dave Benstead, from Diodes Zetex plc in Chadderton.

Part of Oldham Partnership, the group helps shape and inform economic policy and strategy in Oldham.

Proposing a vote of thanks and the business awards, Mr Benstead spoke of his pride in the youth of Oldham and how the youth zone would provide a platform for them to become ‘leaders of the future’.