Last week a man gave me a cheque for a million pounds. Sadly for the family finances it wasn’t addressed to me but to our Get Oldham Working campaign.

Norman Stoller is a self-made man who made his money from hard work and he cares passionately about our town. Like all of us who care about the town he knows that prolonged unemployment is a curse for too many families in Oldham. We are currently top of the Greater Manchester unemployment list and we need to give a ‘hand up’ to the more than 8,000 local people out of work.

The challenge is significant – so the response must be equally substantial.

We can’t wait for someone to sort this out for us. We can’t sit here in the hope that the UK economy will recover and the Oldham simply gets its share. If we do that, we will fail again.

When the last boom came, Oldham flagged. Much money went into the public sector without creating an environment for growth so that – when the tough times did come – we simply weren’t able to withstand the force of the current recession. But don’t take my word for it, the facts are there and tell a story of one of the world leaders of the industrial revolution losing half of its remaining manufacturing base from 1998 to 2008.

We have embarked on one of the most ambitious town centre regeneration programmes in the North West. It will create jobs and breed confidence but we need to do more to get Oldham working.

No one organisation, sector or approach can do this so we need to marshal all the resources available. It simply won’t do for us to stand by and see another generation cast aside, forgotten or left without hope and ambition. Our young people are our future. This just isn’t a nice thing to do – it’s essential for the long term future of our town.

By 2015 we will have in place the Oldham Guarantee which will mean no young person will leave school without the guarantee of a job, education, apprenticeship or support towards self employment. We want to show young people that Oldham is a town that believes in you – a town which once led the world and hasn’t lost the spirit of enterprise. Our message is simple – if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and get on in life then you will have the support of the town behind you.

Get Oldham Working is more than a town hall project – it is restoring civic pride. That’s why the donation of Norman is so important – he believes in what we are trying to do and wants to encourage a new generation of entrepreneurs in the town.  We want to offer hope to as many families as possible. So as part of our ambition to become a town guided by cooperative principles we will be asking each of our 7,000 businesses to do their bit and take on one new member of staff or apprentice. We will do our bit as a council by offering help and advice to those smaller businesses willing to do this.

We also need to make more of our position in the Greater Manchester city region by connecting our residents with jobs beyond our borough boundaries. Transport and skills are key to this, but actually just making people aware of the opportunities would be a good start. If 80 per cent of those out of work access the job centre where only 20 per cent of vacancies are advertised we have to do more to find new ways of connecting residents with job opportunities and not simply rely on a failed system which locks people into a cycle of poor quality employment where zero hour contracts, agency work and part time jobs are increasingly the norm for many families.

As leader, my ambition extends to my own party. We know that in too many instances local councillors don’t reflect the local population particularly in terms of age. Frankly we don’t make it easy by having too many meetings that serve no purpose and not acting as talent scouts in terms of attracting local activists. That’s why Oldham Labour has launched its own apprenticeship scheme to encourage those who care about the town and its future to find out more about the Labour party. It’s open to all residents who share our values and runs for twelve months with a combination of practical campaigning with study sessions on the role and purpose of the Labour party and its relevance to Oldham’s future. Launched last month it has already attracted over a dozen participants who fully represent the diversity of the borough and will they will hopefully be providing some competitive challenge to myself and cabinet colleagues in future years!

I have great hopes for my party but we have to face a fundamental truth that too many of our fellow citizens have lost faith in us. We have to address the concerns that matter to them. Westminster politics are just too distant for many. We have to root our Labour values in our towns and cities and make Civic Pride part of those values.

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Jim MacMahon is leader of Oldham council. He tweets @CllrJimMcMahon

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For information about the Get Oldham Working initiative please contact Faridah Newman. For more details of the Oldham Labour Apprentice please contact Phil Gaul