A small selection of TikToks I have created for The Oldham Times and The Bolton News, all edited by me using CapCut and/or Premiere Pro on the desktop and recorded using a mobile phone.
A woman in her 20s has been arrested after a police drugs bust. Crowds gathered outside houses in Tonge Moor as police forced their way through doors to carry out warrants including on Dalymount Close, just after 4pm on Tuesday afternoon (March 12). A woman was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply class A and class B drugs after substances suspected to be cocaine and cannabis were recovered by police. A raid on two other houses in the area led to no arrests, however. Read more on The Bolton News.
A council investigation is underway after rubble, debris and building materials appear to have been dumped on land in Great Lever. Residents of Crescent Road have shared their upset over the ‘eyesore’, which has begun to spill over the land’s boundary onto the Beehive Pond land. Shaun Bygraves, who lives on the other side of the pond, said he and his wife no longer fully opened their blinds as they are so sick of seeing the dumped rubbish – and now they might move away. For more, see The Bolton News website.
An Oldham woman has reunited with her fiancé after spending months trying to get him out of war-torn Gaza to safety in the UK. The pair shared a tearful embrace at Manchester Airport’s arrivals lounge on Friday, February 29, with Hani’s arm in a sling due to his injuries. Afshan and Hani thanked Mohammed Imran Ali, also known as Irish Immy, for his assistance in getting Hani to the UK. Immy, who accompanied Hani on a business class flight from Cairo to Manchester after reading The Oldham Times’ coverage, also paid for Hani’s hotel, food, and even new clothing. Read more on The Oldham Times.
A beloved Bolton institution, Dave’s Angling Superstore, will be closing for good at some point between April and June. We went down to see how things were going. Read more on The Bolton News.
Dovestone Reservoir volunteers are celebrating after planting their one millionth sphagnum moss at the reservoir. Volunteers gathered with RSPB and landowner United Utilities to mark the moment on a rainy and windy Wednesday morning. According to site manager Kate Hanley, who has been with the RSPB for 14 years, the moss has biodiversity benefits and flood management benefits. The moss can trap more than 20 times its weight in water, making the landscape more resistant to fires and resilient to drought. Having been planted by hand at the site for 10 years, the sphagnum moss is purchased from external suppliers, with bundles of 20 plants coming wrapped in a potato starch film. Within five to 10 years, however, Kate hopes it will no longer need to be purchased as the growing supply around the reservoir can be used instead. The planting programme is part of a wider ambition to restore the landscape around the reservoir, which has suffered from humans cutting vegetation since Neolithic times. Stone dams and peat dams have also been built to trap water – creating habitats for insects to feed native birds, and preventing carbon-rich peat from being washed by rain into the water supply. The wider ambition for the restoration is to plant more than one million trees, which will be smaller scrub rather than larger conifer or forestry, as well as flower-rich grassland and heather, around the reservoir.
Bolton residents have given their reaction after The Princess of Wales publicly took the blame for a manipulated family photograph released by Kensington Palace as she issued a personal apology for the “confusion”. Kate said sorry with a statement on social media which read: “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. “I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C.”
Greater Manchester Police went out on an afternoon of action this Thursday as part of the force’s Operation Classify. The operation is designed to target drivers on ‘high-risk’ road routes in the borough. Officers set up on Chorley New Road just after 2pm, with a large dot-matrix display. In the hour The Bolton News observed, no drivers were pulled over and no tickets were issued – with most driving well under the 40 mph limit, with drivers recorded going as slow as 14.
A woman said she was PUNCHED after asking asking a parent not to park on her drive 😲. Residents in Lees have called for action over ‘out of control’ parking near two schools #Lees#Oldham#schoolstreet#schoolstreets