Our gift, a club for a forgotten generation

Ami Brierley (front left) one of the local teenagers who has helped determine the new facilities and Lee Thompson (front right) flanked by sponsors and local authority principals

DESCRIBING Oldham’s youth as the “forgotten generation” entrepreneur Bill Holroyd launched an impassioned appeal to the borough’s business community.

Mr Holroyd, who founded a food and drink distribution business in Oldham, was speaking at the launch of the Mahdlo youth zone project to an invited audience from the private, public and voluntary sector at Gallery Oldham.

Mr Holroyd, who has been chairman of the initiative for the past three years, announced that planning permission for the £5 million lads and girls club on the site of the Marjorie Lees Health Centre in Egerton Street, Oldham, has been granted.

People are working on contractors and the planned opening is September, 2011, he declared.

He added: “Today’s youth is excluded from nice places like gyms and shopping centres, places we take for granted. They have little positive contact with adults — as a generation we should be ashamed.

“This Oldham initiative will deliver a world-class facility for up to 3,500 young people every day of the week, every week of the year. It is so obvious to me that Oldham should have one.

“Oldham has grasped this with both hands — it has been an inspiration to be part of the process and I am so proud of Oldham.”

A succession of speakers including William Lees-Jones, the managing director of J W Lees (Brewers) Ltd, which has committed £25,000 a year for the next three years outlined the overwhelming support for the project.

Mr Lees-Jones added: “In the three years that I have been involved no one has ever said ‘no’.”

Oldham Council leader Howard Sykes said: “This is going to happen — as a borough we cannot afford for this not to work. Play your part and let’s make it happen together.”

Lee Thompson, a teenager who has been chairman of the development board, spoke of how young people had played a full part in determining the facilities to be incorporated into the three-storey building.

He added: “If I was asked to sum up in three words what this means to the young people of Oldham I would say ‘absolutely amazing opportunity’.”

Rounding off the appeal, Norman Stoller, whose family founded the Seton Healthcare Products business in Oldham, committed £250,000 to the project for each of the next five years from his charitable foundation and concluded: “The Stoller Foundation is backing this initiative to put something back into Oldham — and I hope that all of you here today will do so, too.”

The new centre — based on the hugely successful Bolton club which has the backing of 1,600 businesses — will cost £1m a year to run with £400,000 pledged annually from the local authority, an estimated £100,000 from 50p entrance fees and the balance from charitable sources and trusts, grants and the private sector.

Former Oldham and Greater Britain rugby league player Terry Flanagan, who is chairing Mahldo’s fund-raising committee, hosted the launch and concluded: “The hard work starts now — please sign up for more information of how to become a sponsor.”