The future of Oldham starts right here, right now

Council chief: In five years time Oldham will be a very different place, with a lot more to offer.

AS neighbours Bury show off their shiny new town-centre development Oldham’s council boss Charlie Parker admits: “We have done a lot of talking and not a lot of walking.”

It’s a frank assessment of Oldham by the man at its helm. And if anyone can make sure Oldham does the walking, it is chief executive Charlie Parker.

“What there needs to be is a different approach to how we attract investment in town centres like Oldham,” added Mr Parker.

He was responsible for Liverpool ONE, the £1 billion rebuilding of the Paradise Street area of the city which started in 2004.

The largest retail scheme in Europe at the time, it brought more than 1.6 million square feet of new shopping space to the city along with leisure, exhibition and conference facilities, two hotels, a new bus station, a new public park, offices and apartments.

Completed between 2008 and 2009, the 42.5 acre scheme has 36 individually designed buildings and is a much-needed link between the waterfront and city centre.

But Mr Parker said: “One of the things people forget is that regeneration is a very long-term thing. You can’t create success overnight, you have to put the right building blocks in place.”

In Liverpool’s case it took more than ten years to achieve, 18 months alone for Mr Parker to write the development proposals.

“And that was in the good times when there was money in the market place and investment opportunities,” he added.

“There won’t be another Rock or another Liverpool in ten years because there is isn’t the type of appetite to put £300 to £400 million into a new retail centre at the moment.

Finance is crucial in the current economic climate and Oldham is part of the Evergreen regeneration fund set up with £20 million of European money.

It aims to fund projects crucial to the region’s economy by attracting matched funding from the public sector for projects, which will in turn generate revenue to be spent on more schemes. The aspiration is to grow the fund to £400 or £500 million.

Mr Parker is also reappraising the town to get those building blocks in place, looking at documents such as the Oldham Beyond report published in 2004. This was a 15-year vision to transform Oldham — but Mr Parker admitted that “not much” had been done to achieve it.

Why is a question he says he cannot answer; he joined Oldham Council two years ago from English Partnerships, where he was director of investment and performance.

Instead, he is considering what does and doesn’t work in the town centre. And a key element is making sure things such as leisure and the market are in the right places, and that everything links together.

“People do not frequent parts of the town centre,” explained Mr Parker.

“It is not connected and that was the problem in Liverpool. There was a great wasteland between the edge of prime retail and the waterfront.”

Mr Parker believes that vital to getting this right is the arrival of Metrolink, which will transform Union Street from the town centre’s back door and regenerate Mumps.

The development of the education quarter, with the University Campus Oldham and the new regional science centre, also brings different consumers.

One thing Oldham town centre doesn’t need, Mr Parker insists, is a new shopping centre like The Rock. The Spindles Town Square has fewer empty shops than other centres in the region and has been doing better than Rochdale, Tameside and Stockport.

Oldham also already has many of the new retail names in Bury, like Debenhams, H&M and Primark.

Instead, Mr Parker said Oldham needs fewer pubs and clubs with vertical drinking (the “remove the chairs and pack ’em in” approach) and more leisure and culture; thinning out the takeaways and having more family restaurants.

All of this will help attract much-needed family entertainment and Mr Parker said: “We are not going to get a cinema to come in on its own, they want to know what else there is going to be there.”

So what will Oldham be like in a few years’ time?

“We are never going to be a Bury. We are going to be Oldham and Oldham is fine. But we have got to be clear about what we want in Oldham and we have got to be clear about achieving it.

“This is the time when we are doing our thinking and we are starting to do our walking.

“In five years’ time Oldham town centre will be a very different place. It will have a lot more to offer.”

And perhaps, most importantly, Mr Parker added: “We have got to start saying Oldham is a great place. I think it is fantastic. I call it the hidden gem.”