Former council leader receives Lifetime Achievement award

Former Leader of Oldham Council, Howard Sykes MBE, has been honoured with the ALDC President's Award for Lifetime Achievement in Local Government at the recent Liberal Democrat Conference.

Councillor Sykes, who served as council leader from 2008 to 2011, retired from Oldham Council this year after 40 years’ unbroken service as both borough and parish (now town) councillor for Shaw.  

When first elected, he was the youngest councillor in the country. He went on to lead the Liberal Democrat Group for 20 years.  

Outside Oldham he was influential from his early career as a co-founder of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, an organisation to develop the skills of councillors and aspiring councillors and eventually its leader. 

Councillor Sykes took on his greatest challenge when the Liberal Democrats took over Oldham Council from Labour in 2008.  Oldham was officially rated third-worst large council in the country and was under imminent threat of a compulsory government takeover.  

He led a team which established financial control, streamlined the organisation, improved services, and even delivered a zero Council Tax rise. 

This led to him being much in demand as a Local Government Association (LGA) trainer and mentor at other councils. He was elected leader of the Liberal Democrat section of the LGA. 

This lifetime recognition was the latest in a series of awards; most notably, his MBE in 2014, which was for services to local government. 

Oldham Liberal Democrats group leader Sam Al-Hamdani said: “Howard’s departure has left a significant gap in Oldham’s politics which has really emphasised how much he did for the people of Oldham.  

"He has shown what liberal values mean when it comes to creating a community and standing up for everyone in it. His passion both for his hometown – Shaw – and the borough as a whole is remarkable. Politics in Oldham is extremely hard work, and far too aggressive, and for someone to has stood up for that length of time and continued to make a difference for people every single day will be missed.”