7 months ago
32
The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities is backing the recent call of an Oldham Councillor for the preservation of the town’s nuclear bunker in the name of peace.
In January 2016, at a time when North Korea was testing nuclear weapons, the Mirror newspaper posed a question of its readership: ‘Where are the best places in the UK to survive nuclear war?’ with the surprising number one answer being the northern town of Oldham. Why? Because when the new municipal Civic Centre was built, designers Cecil Howitt and Partners built a bunker of reinforced concrete and brick beneath it.
Of course, by 2016 the Cold War had been long over, and the bunker had since fallen into disrepair. Its existence was first revealed in May 2015 with an expose in the regional newspaper the Manchester Evening News. At that time, Council Leader Jim McMahon OBE said: “It is quite strange and shocking to think that this (bunker) is where some of the survivors would have ended up, effectively being entrusted to help run what was left of the country”.
So, although the bunker was built to accommodate a select group of civic leaders for the ultimate exercise in futility – attempting to maintain the business of local government in the face of a nuclear war, the Evening News’s accompanying photographs made plain that the facility now largely served as underground storage space for redundant office furniture.
Now the Civic Centre itself faces the threat of demolition as part of a plan to relocate its office-based staff, and Oldham Councillor Louie Hamblett has written to the Council’s Director of Place Emma Barton lamenting that the demolition of the bunker would represent ‘another loss, historically and educationally, for the people of Oldham’ and that an alternate use as a museum could be found for it, as happened with the former air raid shelters in Stockport.
This possibility has been raised before by former Councillor Derek Heffernan, who, as Oldham’s first declared Mayor of Peace, wrote to the former Chief Executive with a similar proposal. Mayor Heffernan was indefatigable in his promotion of peace during his term in office, visiting many schools to speak on the subject, inducting Oldham into the Mayors for Peace initiative, and acting as Chair of the Oldham Pledge to Peace Forum, but the highlight of his mayoral year was the visit to the borough of two Hibakusha, Japanese atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima, who assisted him in planting seeds harvested from a ginkgo tree that had itself survived the same atom bomb. The resultant saplings have since been planted in parks and schools across the borough in Mayor Heffernan’s memory.
Although there are many military museums around the UK, Britain only has one museum dedicated to peace, and the NFLAs would like to see more. The Peace Museum is currently relocating from a city centre site in Bradford to the iconic and more accessible Salts Mill in neighbouring Saltaire, with a grand reopening planned in the autumn of 2024 https://www.peacemuseum.org.uk/ and there are plans to develop a second Peace Museum in London by 2030 https://thepeacebuilding.org.uk/explore/about/. For the NFLAs establishing a peace museum in a former nuclear bunker in Oldham represents a tantalising and unique third possibility in a truly iconic venue.
Now the NFLA’s have echoed Councillor Hamblett’s plea for preservation and restoration in a second letter to Ms Barton.
The author of that letter, Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of the NFLA’s English Forum and Chair of Leeds Peacelink, explains why:
“The NFLAs first grew out of the refusal of Manchester to countenance participation in the Thatcher Government’s plan to enrol local authorities in civil defence preparations to make ready for a future nuclear war with the Soviet Union. This refusal led to Manchester City Council declaring itself the world’s first nuclear-free local authority on 5 November 1980 and in 1981 other Councils from across the UK which had made similar declarations met in the city to form the Nuclear Free Local Authorities. Although the NFLAs now primarily focus on opposing nuclear power, we remain a member of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and continue to campaign for a nuclear weapon free world.
“The Oldham site, if preserved, restored, and operated as a not-for-profit charitable museum, could provide a second exhibition space on the other side of the Pennines showcasing the enormity of the threat posed to all humanity by the existence of nuclear weapons, the devastation caused to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by their use, and the ongoing campaign to secure global nuclear disarmament.
“Whilst other former nuclear bunkers have elsewhere in the UK been reopened as museums of the Cold War, the Oldham site might be the first to be rededicated to the promotion of peace.”
Ends//…
For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Notes to Editors
The letter sent by Councillor Blackburn to Director Emma Barton reads:
Ms Emma Barton,
Director of Place and Economic Growth,
Oldham Council.
12 Sept 2023
The retention and restoration of the Oldham Civic Centre nuclear bunker
Dear Ms Barton,
I am writing to you as Chair of the English Forum of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs) in support of the recent plea made to you by Councillor Hamblett to investigate the retention and restoration of the nuclear bunker beneath the Civic Centre if, and when, that building is demolished.
Like Cllr Hamblett, we believe that there might be a possibility that the bunker could be repurposed as a museum and educational facility for the promotion of peace.
To explain the interest of the NFLAs, we first grew out of the refusal of your neighbouring authority, Manchester, to countenance participation in the Thatcher Government’s plan to enrol local authorities in wasting time and money on pointless civil defence preparations to make ready for a future nuclear war with the Soviet Union. This refusal led to Manchester City Council declaring itself the world’s first nuclear-free local authority on 5 November 1980 and in 1981 other Councils from across the UK which had made similar declarations met in the city to form the Nuclear Free Local Authorities.
Although the NFLAs now primarily focus on opposing nuclear power, we remain a member of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and continue to campaign for a nuclear weapon free world. We therefore welcome any practical initiatives involving local authorities in furtherance of this end.
The bunker itself has an interesting history and has received previous media attention in the Manchester Evening News and the Mirror.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/north-korea-h-bomb-test-7126256
In this first article, former Council Leader Jim McMahon OBE said: “It is quite strange and shocking to think that this (bunker) is where some of the survivors would have ended up, effectively being entrusted to help run what was left of the country”, and in the second, in response to the question ‘Where are the best places in the UK to survive nuclear war?’ the Mirror ranked Oldham number one on account of it.
However, although designers Cecil Howitt and Partners built a cutting-edge bunker of reinforced concrete and brick beneath the Civic Centre as part of its construction, by 2015 the photographs published by the MEN showed that it had fallen into disrepair, having gone from the underground base in which a select group of civic leaders were expected to conduct the ultimate exercise in futility – attempting to maintain the business of local government in the face of a nuclear war – to an underground storage space for redundant office furniture.
Councillor Hamblett’s proposal to look to the bunker’s preservation from the wrecking ball and to restore it as a museum and centre for peace was previously made by Councillor Derek Heffernan, who, as Oldham’s first declared Mayor of Peace, wrote to the former Chief Executive Dr Carolyn Wilkins OBE with a similar proposal in 2017.
Although there are many military museums around the UK, Britain only has one museum dedicated to peace, and the NFLAs would like to see more. The Peace Museum is currently relocating from a city centre site in Bradford to the iconic and more accessible Salts Mill in neighbouring Saltaire, with a grand reopening planned in the autumn of 2024 https://www.peacemuseum.org.uk/ and there are plans to develop a second Peace Museum in London by 2030 https://thepeacebuilding.org.uk/explore/about/. To the NFLAs, establishing a peace museum in a former nuclear bunker in Oldham represents a tantalising and unique third possibility in a truly iconic venue.
The Oldham site, if preserved, restored, and operated as a not-for-profit charitable museum, could provide a second exhibition space on the other side of the Pennines showcasing the enormity of the threat posed to all humanity by the existence of nuclear weapons, the devastation caused to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by their use, and the ongoing campaign to secure global nuclear disarmament.
Whilst other former nuclear bunkers have elsewhere in the UK been reopened as museums of the Cold War, the Oldham site might be the first to be rededicated to the promotion of peace.
The NFLAs would be interested in working with you, and Cllr Hamblett, on this. We are also confident that the existing UK peace museums and the International Network of Museums for Peace https://sites.google.com/view/inmp-museums-for-peace/home/about-inmp would lend their support to such an initiative.
Thank you for reading this letter. We would welcome your comments in response. Please reply by email to NFLA Secretary Richard Outram at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
Thank you. Yours sincerely,
Councillor David Blackburn,
Chair, NFLA English Forum / Vice-Chair, UK / Ireland NFLA Steering Committee
The media release issued by the Oldham Liberal Democrat Group dated 8 September
Protecting our history and heritage
Crompton Liberal Democrat Councillor Louie Hamblett has recently written a letter to Oldham Council’s Executive Director Place and Economic Growth Ms Emma Barton. In it he has asked if the planned development of the civic precinct includes the demolition and removal of the bunker/s. This action would result in another loss, historically and educationally, for the people of Oldham.
He mentions that Stockport have kept their Air Raid Shelters which are used as both educational day trips for schoolchildren and as a living museum for visitors to learn and gain insight into peoples’ lives during wartime Britain.
Cllr Hamblett said
“We have a unique opportunity here to create something similar, to use peoples’ living knowledge of the 1960/70s Cold War past, amidst the backdrop of current threats of nuclear annihilation. It would be beneficial to people to know how buildings such as the Civic were built with threats from behind the Iron Curtain always in mind.”
He finished by saying “ I hope that we don’t lose yet another piece of our important history and we can keep hold of this to for all to learn from and experience what life was like for those who lived and are in some ways living it”.
