Simon Danczuk MP

Fighting for Rochdale, Littleborough and Milnrow

Rochdale’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate, Simon Danczuk, has spoken of his disappointment at discovering that plans by Rochdale Council to deliver discount vouchers for independent shops in Rochdale to 50,000 homes have been scrapped.

Mr Danczuk, who has previously called for a voucher scheme to be introduced to give people an incentive to shop locally, said that the Council had planned to deliver a glossy brochure containing discount vouchers in May this year. News that this had been delayed emerged after local traders confronted Rochdale’s MP, Paul Rowen, and demanded answers at a public meeting last month.

It has since emerged that the voucher scheme was scrapped after the Lib Dem councillor, Greg Couzens, raised an objection to them being sent out. A revised version of the brochure, containing no money off vouchers, will now be sent out at the end of September.

“I have spoken to a number of independent traders who wanted this voucher scheme to go ahead and they are disappointed at the Council’s decision,” said Mr Danczuk. “If this brochure had gone out to 50,000 households in May, as was planned then the incentive of money off vouchers could have meant the difference between some local traders staying in business or going bust. How many businesses have gone to the wall over the last few months while the Lib Dems squabbled among themselves and stopped support getting through to those who need it?”

One local trader, Paul Turner-Mitchell, director of 25 TEN clothing boutique on Cheetham Street, said he believed the decision to scrap the voucher scheme was “wrong”.

“There can be no doubt that local residents are going away from the town centre for their retail needs,” he said. “What better way to entice them back to our centre than with an incentive? Where is the incentive when you take away the money off vouchers?”

He added that it was important that lessons were learned from this project so traders felt they were being given the support they need. “The Rochdale Town Centre Management Company needs to be trusted and supported in the decisions they make,” he said. “Had this been the case then, as far as I can see, the brochure would have been distributed back in May or June and local residents would be spending the vouchers in our town centre now.”

Mr Danczuk stressed that with Rochdale being the worst hit town centre in the Northwest it was absolutely vital that help was delivered to traders as quickly as possible. “This is another example of the council dithering,” he said. “They’re not giving traders the support they need and this is a missed opportunity. I know other local authorities are working with local traders and issuing money off vouchers that can be downloaded off their website. Why isn’t Rochdale providing the same level of support? Their failure to act is costing jobs and hurting town centre traders.”

“No one should be under any illusions over the size of the task in turning our town centre around. I am pleased that the Council has applied for Government funding to fill empty shops. Now we need to move forward quickly and start putting this money to good use.”