Huge Prince’s Gate development plan pushed back as council accused of ‘doing too much behind closed doors’

The decision on the long-awaited development at Prince’s Gate in Oldham has been questioned after councillors raised concerns about ‘insufficient information’ and decisions they claim have been ‘made behind closed doors’.

Previous attempts to develop the brownfield site in Oldham Mumps, currently used as a car park, have fallen through.

But last month, the town hall’s cabinet made the decision to transform the site into 295 new flats as part of a town centre masterplan to build 2,000 new homes.

That decision has now been called into question after reports were pulled into a scrutiny meeting for discussion.

Oldham Lib Dem councillor Sam Al-Hamdani, who ‘called in’ the issue, said: “We challenged how the cabinet arrived at these decisions.

"There was insufficient information in the reports to justify the decisions that were made – and the scrutiny committee agreed with us.

“We also want to know why more of the reports about these decisions is not public.

"Too much is happening behind closed doors.”

Members of the press were excluded from the scrutiny meeting. Coun Al-Hamdani said the committee unanimously agreed the report needed to be reviewed a second time by cabinet members as there were questions that ‘couldn’t be answered’ and information missing from documents.

The Saddleworth councillor said he was ‘desperate’ to see Princes Gate developed, but wanted to see ‘evidence that this is the best way to do that’.

Princes Gate was due to be turned into an M&S and then a Lidl, but both organisations pulled out of their deals with Oldham council.

The decision will now go back to cabinet to review and assess the decision making process.

Council leader Arooj Shah said: “This Labour administration is actually getting on with things and delivering developments that will benefit and improve the lives of residents.

“The Lib Dems just continue to be negative and are trying to throw a spanner in the works and hold things up.

"We welcome honest and open debate, but every council in the country makes important commercial decisions at meetings when the press and public are excluded.

“By taking these decisions in private we are protecting the council’s financial position – and ultimately that of all council taxpayers.”

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