{"id":293030,"date":"2025-07-26T10:16:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T10:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/293030\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T10:16:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T10:16:17","slug":"homeless-camp-outside-greater-manchester-town-hall-moved-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/293030\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless camp outside Greater Manchester town hall ‘moved on’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not thought anyone was living there permanently(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

A homeless camp on the doorstep of Oldham\u2019s town hall has been moved on and the area blocked off by council staff.<\/p>\n

The entrance to part of the council\u2019s Civic Centre offices, which has stood empty for several months, has been used as a shelter by people with no fixed address since February. But within the last week, the town hall has quietly shut down the camp.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s housing boss said \u2018no one was living there permanently\u2019 and people were offered support before the tents were removed.<\/p>\n

Coun Elaine Taylor, deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: \u201cWhile residents were sleeping in tents at the old Access Oldham<\/a> office our teams engaged to see how we could help and support them, and as Cabinet Member I went and spoke to them myself to encourage them to accept the support being offered.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe offered them accommodation, guidance and help to make sure they were safe and looked after. The same support we offer anyone who needs it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time we moved the tents, there was nobody staying there on a permanent basis, as our team had carried out checks throughout the days and nights leading up to this to make sure everyone had been provided appropriate alternative accommodation.<\/p>\n

“The space they were staying in was not a suitable location for anyone to sleep, so this has now been secured to protect everyone, and the reality is we\u2019ll soon be moving out of the civic centre and it will become a building site.”<\/p>\n

(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

The town hall was previously criticised by councillors from the Liberal Democrat group for the \u2018bad optics\u2019 of those facing destitution camping outside an unused council building. The offices have stood empty since council staff were moved to the brand new offices at The Spindles shopping centre in June 2024.<\/p>\n

And the Local Democracy Reporting Service previously spoke to one man who was sleeping rough at the former Civic entrance. Josef, a 28-year-old Eritrean who fled his home country after the government killed most of his family due to their religion, shared how he\u2019d struggled to access help through the council services in June after he was granted refugee status.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to the council every day,\u201d Josef said. \u201cThey tell me they can only help when I have found a place to rent. But nowhere will accept me because I have no money, no job, no education. And nowhere will take me for work because I have no address.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council states it has supported all who were at the homeless camp with finding alternative accommodation and advice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s not thought anyone was living there permanently(Image: Manchester Evening News) A homeless camp on the doorstep of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,6332,2465,1286,14984,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-293030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-homelessness","12":"tag-manchester","13":"tag-oldham","14":"tag-oldham-council","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114919019915668905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}