Council services are relocated

ACCESS DENIED . . .Oldham Civic Centre 'Access Oldham' closed due to health and safety reasons.

ACCESS Oldham will be closed for a number of weeks while essential unplanned repairs to the roof are carried out.

Following a ceiling tile which fell from the inside roof of the building Access Oldham last Monday the Council will carry out unplanned repairs and a full assessment of the building, with services being relocated to the Lees Suitein the Civic Centre.

Residents looking to access the services can go to the main Civic Centre entrance to the rear of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Signage has been placed outside the building and staff will be on hand to direct people to the correct location and residents needing to make a claim or register a change of circumstances can also do so at home or access computers at their local library.

As a full assessment of the building is being carried out, a re-opening date cannot yet be confirmed.

Councillor Abdul Jabbar said: "As regular visitors to Access Oldham will know, the ceiling is very high. This creates operational difficulties in carrying out repairs because of the need to use scaffolding.

"Therefore, rather than operating the normal Access Oldham building with repair workers and scaffolding everywhere, we've decided to temporarily relocate services to the Lees Suite within the Civic Centre."

He said: "The safety of the public and our staff is paramount. This is just a short distance away and the team will be able to offer all the services we usually offer at Access Oldham.

"We will use this opportunity to carry out a full assessment of the Access Oldham building and carry out any repairs and maintenance that needs to be done.

"We apologise for any inconvenience and ask that people bear with us at this time."