AN ex-services veteran is threatening to take what he sees as a lack of democratic accountability by Oldham Council to the Local Government Ombudsman.

George Kay, aged 80, who is chairman of Roxbury and Roundthorn Residents Association, claims that the three councillors representing the St Mary’s Ward are failing in their duty to represent the residents living in the area.

He said: “In a personal capacity, I took my concerns to last week’s Oldham Council meeting where I listened to other concerned residents from Royton Shaw and Medlock Vale get shut down by the Mayor’s gavel after failing to get what they felt were considered responses to questions they had asked of the local authority on issues which included problems with litter.”

Mr Kay was there to ask his own question of the authority about his concerns that the three councillors representing his ward, namely Aftab Hussain, Shadab Qumer and Ali Aqueel Salamat, who he said had failed to hold surgeries to consult with all the residents in what is a predominantly Asian ward.

Mr Kay explained: “In the past three years the residents have not had any public notices of any of the three councillors holding surgeries for the benefit of representation and when I asked one of them why not, he told me because he got his sources of referral from the mosque.

“That is all well and good, but I am a Christian and don’t attend the mosque and would like to feel that issues I raise on a regular basis are being dealt with in an even handed manner.”

In his question to the local authority last week he asked if Oldham Council could explain why three elected members of the ward had not held a clinic, surgery or meeting with ward residents.

In response, the leader of Oldham Council Cllr Sean Fielding said there was no statutory obligation by councillors to hold a surgery and added that their council representatives "had other sources of referral".

Mr Kay added: “I am really unhappy about Cllr Fielding’s response in that there was no opportunity for myself or any of the other questioners to come back with a supplementary question as to whether we feel that it has been fully answered to our satisfaction and the failure to hold surgeries in my opinion is further closing down democratic debate.

“Equally, there are so many people who don’t have access to computers or to mobile telephones so they have little or no chance of making contact with their local councillors to make their concerns known and I want to know what the council intends to do to deal with this.

“My intention is to try to respond to Cllr Fielding’s answer at the next council meeting later this month and if that fails, I intend to take it through the complaints process and ultimately to the Local Government Ombudsman.”

In response Cllr Salamat said he decided to halt his surgeries with ward residents because he considered it a waste of his time.

“It is correct that I stopped doing surgeries three or four years ago because in the previous six years only one person turned up in all that time.”

Cllr Salamat said he had been in touch with Mr Kay and had helped him resolve some of his previous concerns.

The Oldham Times also contacted the other two ward councillors for their views but they had not responded as we went to press.

A straw poll conducted by the Oldham Times showed that of all 60 Oldham councillors on the council website, just 11 of them now advertise regular surgeries, whereas the remaining 49 put in a mobile number or an e-mail address for them to be contacted if ward residents have concerns they wish to raise.