Millennium bugbear

CONCERN: residents turned out in force to the meeting

A CROWD of 90 concerned residents attended a meeting to raise issues about the running of the Millennium Centre in Westwood.

Oldham Bangladeshi Association (OBA) leases the Featherstall Road North building — built to mark the Millennium — from the council. But a group calling itself Community Activists allege that OBA has not held elections for its trustee positions since 1998 — a claim which is denied by the association.

They say that OBA membership has fallen from 3,800 in 1998 to just 60 at a time when the Bangladeshi community has grown.

There are also concerns that OBA’s Charity Commission registration was removed in June.

Although it has now been reregistered, it has been late in submitting its accounts and annual updates to the Charity Commission, it has become a limited company and it is not well-used by community groups.

University Campus Oldham student Mofozzul Choudhury, who organised the meeting, said: “The people who were elected in 1998 are the people who are still in power. People are angry about it, they are demanding elections.”

The community and leisure centre was a flagship project to bring communities together and cost £2.8m, including a £1.3m grant from the Millennium Commission.

OBA has a 125-year lease on the building which replaced Oldham Bangladeshi Cultural Centre. However, the centre has long been a political hot potato with sections of the community claiming their heritage had been “sold”.

OBA secretary Councillor Abdul Malik said the centre was run by a separate management board, which included representatives from OBA and other organisations.

He said OBA had held elections, but these were open to members only. Since the centre is open to anyone, relatively few bother to become members.

Councillor Malik pointed out that it had been a limited company since 2000 and said that the Charity Commission had removed its registration because its annual reports had not been submitted.

This, he said, was because OBA had not been required to submit accounts in 2009 and 2010 because its annual return was below £10,000 — and incorrectly believed this also applied to its annual update. The 2009 and 2010 updates have now been submitted and it has been reregistered.

He said the people raising concerns were in the minority adding: “I do not know why they are trying to create a problem.”