Cllr Amanda Chadderton has been elected as the new leader of Oldham Council at the Labour Group AGM last night. Following the meeting Amanda said the following:

‘It is it the greatest honour of my life to have been elected to lead Oldham. I was brought up here, I went to school here and I am now bringing up my own daughter here.

My focus over the next twelve months will be on ensuring that we continue at pace with our resident focused strategy; we have to get the basics right and deal with the things that residents say are important to them. This also means providing a high standard of service from keeping our streets clean to improving education.

Work has been done over the past 12 months to lay a solid foundation for the year ahead, we will begin to see our ambitious plans around regeneration take shape and I am committed to ensuring these come to fruition. For a lot of our residents, the biggest concern is the cost of living crisis. I do not want to see any more of our residents pushed into poverty because of rising food, fuel and energy prices. I will ensure that the council has people in place to support our residents. We have committed over £1M to ensure the success of Don’t Trash Oldham is not wasted and residents continue to see an improvement in their area.

I went into politics because I felt I had something to offer and I was passionate about improving peoples’ lives and the town. Power for the sake of power means nothing, it is what you do with it that counts and I am absolutely committed to improving Oldham as a place to live and improving the lives of our residents.’

Cllr Abdul Jabbar and Cllr Elaine Taylor have been elected as Deputy Leaders.