‘We’re going to have a broken community with people – not Mancs – living in luxury flats’
COUNCILLOR’S WARNING OVER ‘VOID’ OF SOCIAL OR AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN THE CITY CENTRE
MANCHESTER city centre risks becoming a ‘broken community,’ a councillor has warned, due to a ‘complete void’ of social or affordable housing.
Labour’s Jon-Connor Lyons raised his concerns during a town hall meeting that focused largely on the city’s growing housing and homelessness crisis.
In response to his query, Manchester’s new director of housing admitted the town hall was not ‘necessarily doing enough’ on the issue.
Coun Lyons, who was elected as a new city centre councillor in May, had demanded to know what senior figures were doing to address what he views as a serious shortage of genuinely affordable homes in his Piccadilly ward, which is seeing waves of visible residential development.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, in the city centre there’s a complete void of social and affordable housing and not long before now we are going to end up with a scenario where we don’t have a cohesive community, where we don’t have any of that community spirit,” he said, after first asking about the council’s approach to checking standards in B&Bs used for temporary homeless accommodation.
“We are going to have a broken community with people – not Mancunians – living in these luxury flats.
“So I’d like to know what work the executive member is doing to tackle this issue.”
Executive member for housing Suzanne Richards did not respond to the remarks, but the town hall’s new director of housing, Jon Sawyer, admitted the issue of affordable housing in the city centre was a ‘thorny question.’ “So, one answer to that is that an affordable home in a city centre scheme might cost a developer more to provide than an affordable home in a scheme somewhere else in the city, because it might be halfway up a tower block with all sorts of other associated infrastructure,” he said. “At the same time, there may be service charges which are counted within an affordable rent, which might simply make that property unaffordable for someone to live in. So providing affordable housing in city centres isn’t without its practical challenges to make happen. “But having said that, two things I think are happening which are important.” Mr Sawyer noted that the town hall was in the middle of reviewing its approach to ‘viability assessments’ , the mechanism by which developers outline how much they can afford to provide for cheaper homes. Backbenchers have had concerns for some time that firms are wriggling out of their duties by arguing that to provide affordable housing contributions would wipe out their profits. “The second thing is there are some schemes in the
city centre that are generating affordable housing contributions, including some very large and significant schemes which members will be aware of,” he said.
Mr Sawyer, who joined the council over the summer, said he did not want to name the developments in case they were still in negotiation, but added: “Please be reassured that there are now some schemes coming through paying significant development contributions in the city centre.
“But please don’t stop asking questions and challenging, because I’m not saying we’re necessarily doing enough at this moment in time.”
He added that Labour’s focus on affordable and social housing in its May manifesto had been a ‘big influence’ on him deciding to apply for his new role at the town hall, which he took up over the summer.
The meeting of Manchester’s neighbourhoods scrutiny committee also saw concerns raised about plans for affordable housing a couple of miles outside of the city centre, however, at the Ben Street area of Clayton – a community that has been half-derelict for 20 years but where a tight-knit community has remained throughout. Coun Andy Harland asked why joint regeneration plans for the area drawn up by the council and housing provider One Manchester earmarked a cluster of the area’s planned new homes for ‘high market rent.’ Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell has also written to the council questioning how much of the upgrade will comprise social housing, amid fears that too little of the scheme will be genuinely affordable for Mancunians. Mr Sawyer said he had been for a walk around the Ben Street area himself in recent weeks and stressed that of the 150 new homes planned, a third would be social housing. Describing the worries as a bit of a ‘misnomer,’ he said market-rent homes were only one part of the plans, adding: “Overall, we’re talking of potentially hundreds of homes changing in that area... please be reassured they’re only part of a bigger regeneration picture which is taking place in that neighbourhood.”