Dr Zahid Chauhan named Honorary Freeman of Oldham

Oldham council has made Dr Zahid Chauhan its newest Honorary Freeman, the first Asian resident to receive the borough's highest civic award in the 28 times it has been given. The quiet ceremony in the Council Chamber on Saturday morning sealed a tribute that had been building since he was first elected for Alexandra ward in 2013.

Colleagues say the honour is less a single moment than the sum of a dozen years of front-line work. As a local GP he kept surgeries open through the pandemic, chaired the health and social care scrutiny panel, and still found time to launch Homeless Friendly in 2017, a scheme that has since been copied by councils across the country.

Residents will remember him most for the practical details: the extra Covid vaccination clinics in Glodwick, the winter shelters set up in empty offices, and the policy that every homeless person leaving hospital leaves with a GP registration already arranged. Those measures cut through red tape and, according to rough-sleepers' charities, kept infection rates lower here than in neighbouring boroughs.

The title carries no salary and no voting rights, but it does give Dr Chauhan a seat at the front of future civic processions and the right to address the full council at will. He says he intends to use that voice to push for faster mental-health support for young people and to keep the night shelter on Lord Street open beyond its current March 2026 funding deadline.

Saturday's audience was small, limited to the mayor, deputy mayor and senior officers, yet the council live-stream reached 3,200 viewers, a record for a non-election webcast. That online interest suggests townspeople see the award not as a finale but as a signal that the doctor who once made house calls in a borrowed people-carrier still has more work to do.