Reflecting on mayor’s show one year into a new political era for region
IT is a year this week since Greater Manchester entered a new political era.
Twelve months ago today, the region’s first ever elected mayor took post after hoovering up more than 60 per cent of the vote – on the back of a manifesto that concentrated on social problems, public transport and housing in particular.
Andy Burnham’s task has been significant – to draw together a disparate range of sometimes conflicting agencies and organisations under one umbrella, to mint a brand new political system and to fulfil his own ambitious promises between now and 2020, all at a time when purse-strings at Westminster have barely loosened.
And that, of course, was even before Manchester’s horrific Arena attack, a few weeks after he started the job.
So how has each main area of the mayor’s remit, and platform, progressed over the first year?
Here’s the first of our two-part run-down. HOMELESSNESS Rough sleeping was probably the issue Mr Burnham has most been associated with during his first year as mayor, as well as during his election campaign last year.
His manifesto made a pledge eye-catching and – for those in the sector – eye-watering in equal measure: eradicate rough sleeping from the region’s streets altogether by 2020.
Currently, however, the numbers are going in the wrong direction.
November’s estimates show a 44pc annual rise in people sleeping rough in Greater Manchester in a year, while the number of people going to their local council for help is also continuing to rise – up another 8pc in Manchester during 2017, on top of similar rises for several consecutive years.
However, it would be wrong to suggest the mayor’s office has been doing nothing.
As well as receiving money from the government to open new shelters, plus programmes to help the most ‘entrenched’ rough sleepers in the city centre and provide upfront supported housing, in the background it has been bringing together charities, public sector bodies and businesses to work in a far more concentrated fashion on the issue.
That may not sound like much, but prior to that, all those organisations had not really talked to each other about it in a coordinated way.
His genuine focus on homelessness has been well-received within the sector and the mayor is also working towards setting up a new board in every borough to oversee standards in temporary homeless accommodation, also changing the rules so that as soon as it hits freezing, emergency shelters open up across the conurbation, as opposed to after three days of subzero temperatures, which is the legal requirement.
That concentration on this issue has kicked it firmly up to the top of the political agenda, helping prompt Manchester Labour to place it at the heart of their own manifesto during this year’s local elections. HOUSING One of the first things the mayor did when he took up post was appoint Salford council’s left-wing mayor, Paul Dennett, to oversee the conurbation’s new housing strategy.
That hasn’t been released yet, but there are already signs of a shift in approach.
The Greater Manchester Housing Investment Fund – known to many for its huge public sector loans to city centre development giants, some of them to build above market-rate flats – is now being refocused.
It is now looking more at smaller developments, with affordable elements to them, spread more evenly across the region.
The mayor has also torn up the Greater Manchester ‘spatial framework’ – the vast planning blueprint due to span the next two decades – that he promised to ‘radically rewrite’ in his manifesto.
How radically different it is likely to be, when released in June – deliberately after the local elections – still remains to be seen.
Some boroughs are understood to have pretty much left their plans exactly as they were, although it is likely some of the bigger and most controversial developments will be pulled from green belt in areas like Stockport, with more development concentrated in town centres.
Mr Burnham is also still mooting the idea of forcibly buying up the worst rental properties from rogue landlords, an idea he suggested during the election campaign.
There remains scepticism about this idea within the combined authority, however, not least because it is unclear what powers – or cash – the mayor would use to do this.
But there are also conversations taking place about seeking new powers from government over housing regulation, including the ability to bring in landlord licensing across entire boroughs without having to get sign-off from Whitehall.
Greater Manchester also secured its £50m housing deal this year, money that will largely be used to clean up land so that it can be developed for affordable housing. BUSES The legislation needed for Greater Manchester to overhaul its bus network came into effect in