Manchester mayor Andy Burnham promised a “much more interventionist approach” to housebuilding in Manchester.
Speaking at the CIH Conference, Burnham said he would use CPO powers to buy out bad landlords, redirect the Manchester Housing fund, re-write the Manchester spatial framework and move away from developer-led development.
Burnham claimed that nationally led policy had given the country a housing crisis but that devolution would enable Manchester to make real change. Following the retirement of the aggressively pro-development former council chief executive Howard Bernstein in April the former Labour MP now effectively shares responsibility for bringing forward development with new council chief Joanne Roney having been elected in May.
“I actually believe there is some hope on the horizon. I believe it is to be found in the arrival of devolution in England,” he said.
“It might be our best chance of creating a housing policy that is right for these communities in actually dealing with the housing crisis.”
Housing policy had been too national, too focused on numbers and too developer led, with the system focusing on where developers want to build and not where they should build for place making accordingly said the newly appointed mayor.
He said he was already rewriting the spatial and planning framework.
“I inherited a spatial and planning framework that I think reflects the developer-led approach. This is not to be anti-developer, but I don’t think you get the developments communities want to see. What it leads to is developers building the sites they want to develop, rather than those more that are sustainable for communities.”
Burnham said he wanted greater city-centre, high-density development intrinsically linked to transport that people in their 20s and 30s can afford, in order to bring new demographics into city centres.
As a result he intends to use his new planning and CPO powers to stimulate and push through development, as well use public funds to CPO bad landlords from the PRS, bringing blocks back into public ownership.
“I am prepared to use those powers to make it easier for developers to bring forward sites that may look too complicated,” he said.
Burnham said he also intended to refocus the greater Manchester housing fund, which needed to be broader and reach other parts of greater Manchester.
“You cannot solve the housing crisis through housebuilding alone. You have to think much more broadly than that. You have to do something about the existing housing stock, and particularly the private rented sector.”
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