Oldham Council’s long promised “game-changer” redevelopment of Prince’s Gate, Mumps in Oldham town centre has fallen through after more than eight years of delays.
It promised to deliver a new hotel and “missing retail giants” to Oldham town centre. Gone has the promised M&S store and in 2019, the council entered a contract with Lidl acting as the developer for the site and to deliver a budget hotel as well as the supermarket.
Liberal Democrat Opposition Leader councillor Howard Sykes MBE said, “Prince’s Gate was lauded as a game-changer for Oldham but more than eight years and four Labour Leaders later it’s gone out with a whimper. Labour can add Prince’s Gate to long list of abortive regeneration projects they’ve championed over the years including so called plans for Hotel Futures. We also still wait for the Egyptian Room in the old Town Hall to be brought into use, years after the rest of it was reopened. It’s a dismal track record.”
The Liberal Democrat Leader pressed council leader Amanda Chadderton on Prince’s Gate as recently as the November 2 council meeting in 2022, pointing out that it had taken less time to put a man on the moon than it had for Oldham Council to deliver the redevelopment of ‘The game changer Princess Gate’.
She said that they were in constant dialogue with the developers and “they say it will be brought forward”. But the Labour Leader has now confirmed that her administration will scrap the plans.
“We have said for a long time they need to deliver and also need to put some effort into our district centres like Shaw, Chadderton, Lees and alike not just Oldham Town Centre,” added councillor Sykes.