Funding news

Oldham Council has handed out 25 grants worth £266,000 to independent traders so they can repaint, repair or replace tired shop fronts in the town centre. The awards, confirmed on 16 January, come from a pot earmarked to make high-street units more inviting and to keep footfall circling locally rather than drifting to Manchester or Rochdale.

The grants sit inside a much larger £20 million package first announced last March, money that will also be spent on sports pitches, extra school places, cultural events and new homes. Council leaders say the wider fund is possible because the borough's budget, after 14 years of Whitehall cuts, is finally 'on the road to recovery', although they have not published updated deficit figures.

Alongside bricks-and-mortar improvements, the authority is opening small digital help desks in libraries and community rooms so residents who struggle with online forms can get face-to-face support. The aim is to make Oldham 'one of the most inclusive digital towns in the UK', a claim that will be tested when Universal Credit claimants are asked to verify earnings online later this year.

Shopkeepers who received the latest grants have until spring to finish their makeovers; the council hopes the refreshed fronts will be ready for the Easter trading push. Whether the combined £20 million can reverse the borough's long-term vacancy rate will become clear when the next business-count survey is released in summer.