Rochdale - Scrounge capital of the UK?
Rochdale – Scrounge Capital of the UK? Is the media’s recent portrayal of Rochdale the true picture?
Richard Catlow, Editorial Director of MEN Weekly Newspapers, including the Rochdale Observer, was the guest speaker at the Rochdale Teahouse Discussion at Wheatsheaf Library, Rochdale. 15 people attended the discussion, including representatives from the council, social and youth workers, library employees and the former Arts Development Officer in Rochdale.
The title of the teahouse quotes the heading of a newspaper article that was one of a series of reports highlighting negative aspects of Rochdale: unemployment, people living on benefits, litter on the streets, crime. Many people in Rochdale feel that this puts their town into a very negative light. Though nobody denies that there are problems in the town, people feel that the positive sides of life in Rochdale, the potential and the hard work that people put into challenging these problems are not mentioned in the press.
The event started with the screening of a GMTV clip entitled Forgotten Britain. It shows interviews with members of a family who live on the Failinge estate in Rochdale who are all unemployed. A number of the ‘negative’ newspaper articles were also displayed.
A community worker from Failinge said that she’d feel safe walking through Failinge at midnight. She also pointed out the need of education and opportunities for the people who live there. She said that there is a lot of positive action, for example a job and training fare, training programmes and community cohesion events. Somebody said that the Rochdale Observer is actually very good at reporting positive action.
An employee of Rochdale Council said that the spotlight’s on Rochdale now. The statistics from February that place Rochdale on top of unemployment in the country are right, and this is one story, but there’s a whole other story, too.
One of the librarians thought that the media manipulated the way the estate was portrayed. She said that it was a neighbourhood with a very strong community and that the people she knows are all professionals and in work. She said that the GMTV clip upset her because it did not reflect her experience of the Failinge estate, that she sees the beautiful cherry blossoms and no litter.
One of the council representatives said that the council had started scientific research into what the negative image was in order to readdress it. It would include consultation of the population of Rochdale. The aim of this consultation and research would be to turn the negative into positive.
Kooj Chuhan, chair of the Teahouse Discussion Series, added an historical context to the discussion. He talked about the sharp decline of the manufacturing industries in the northern area of Greater Manchester over the last 50 years. Many people who had been in work for twenty or thirty years had lost their jobs.
One participant said that in Rochdale 4500 jobs had been lost and 3000 new jobs had been gained. The new jobs are in finances, ICT and the scientific industries. There are programmes in schools to address this situation. The loss of jobs and change of industries is a huge challenge, but there’s also another Rochdale that’s fantastic: multicultural, with fantastic people, set in a beautiful countryside.
Someone mentioned a programme that aims to move up people who are in work.
During the discussion participants repeatedly expressed their anger about the negative image of Rochdale and their believe that Rochdale’s better than this and that Rochdale can succeed for its people.
There was another contribution about Failinge to the discussion. Failinge was described as a place with a good community and no racism. Everybody was said to so friendly, and that there was different music, different smells of food and that everybody got on really well. There was also a photo project with young people documenting life in Failinge.
Someone said that the council should take more care when allocating housing to people and should not place families with children into flats.
Another participants said that once you were on benefits it was very difficult to get off. She said that where she lived there were drug dealers and that many people thought that it’s not worth getting a job because you’d never get as much money working as you get on benefits.
Another contributor made the observation that people in Rochdale liked to ‘talk the town down’. As an example he quoted an entry into the comment book at Touchstones when it first opened: “It’s really good. I can’t believe we’ve done it here.”
He talked about the decline of Rochdale from a grand mill town to now. People in Rochdale used to be very proud of their town, now they feel that it’s another grotty place. He said that Rochdale needed investment to bring it back to what it used to be.
Rochdale Football Club is something that people in Rochdale are really proud of and it makes an important contribution to a positive image of Rochdale.
No comments:
Post a Comment