Pledge to put local people first for new housing

LOCAL people will get first dibs on new housing under a radical pledge by the region’s Conservative mayoral candidate Sean Anstee.

Coun Anstee, who is also leader of Trafford council, is planning a £1bn housing fund to build thousands of homes on former industrial land across Greater Manchester – with a proportion reserved for people who grew up in the area.

He believes the move will help solve a growing affordable housing crisis, as well as supporting younger generations to get on to the housing ladder.

The proposal is contained in Coun Anstee’s mayoral manifesto, launched yesterday at the Bury Black Pudding Company alongside Tory local government secretary Sajid Javid.

It promised to see smart motorways rolled out across the entire length of the M60, a review to see whether a futuristic ‘Hyperloop’ system could be introduced, and plans to spend millions more supporting the region’s struggling social care sector.

As part of key pledges on housing, a Tory mayoralty would see him push the government for a beefed-up and more flexible housing fund for Greater Manchester, bringing it to three times its current total of £300m.

So far that fund – controlled by the region’s ten council bosses – has seen more than 1,500 homes built since it was set up three years ago, but has attracted criticism for focusing largely on city centre apartment blocks often classed as ‘affordable.’

But Coun Anstee wants to add in all the available public cash for building social housing and other homes – currently held by the government, councils and national agencies – so Greater Manchester can bring it under one masterplan.

That would include new social housing and affordable homes for rent, depending on the needs of each area.

Developers would be asked to reserve a percentage of new homes for people in the local community for a set period of time.

He also pledges to clamp down on developers who buy up land and sit on it without using it for new homes, by demanding new powers to force them into using planning permission after a certain length of time. As mayor he would also use compulsory purchase powers to buy up stalled projects or find ways to nudge developers into building. The manifesto pledges parity for mental and physical health – although health does not come under the remit of the mayor and clinical commissioners largely hold the purse strings. Trafford council’s leader, one of the youngest in the country, said he had already ‘spent the past four years battling Westminster politicians and their party-political games’ in order to create a new political system controlled from Greater Manchester, rather than London. Pointing out eight million people live in the radius of Manchester city centre Coun Anstee said the mayoralty was a chance for the region to take its place on the world stage. “We should be shouting about the great things we have here,” he said.

We should be shouting about the great things we have here Coun Sean Anstee, the region’s Conservative mayoral candidate