city centre could get first council houses in decades

TOWN HALL CHIEFS HAD PREVIOUSLY SAID LAND COSTS WERE TOO HIGH

COUNCIL housing could be built in Manchester city centre for the first time in decades after an abrupt change of direction by town hall chiefs.

The city’s new plans - which have emerged in the wake of growing pressure from councillors about Manchester’s housing crisis, as well as the appointment of two new housing chiefs – agree to look at the ‘feasibility’ of such a move, under a fresh plan to build 3,000 genuinely affordable homes citywide in the next decade.

Previously, town hall leaders had said land costs in the city centre were too high to make affordable housebuilding plausible, arguing that cheaper sites nearby, such as in Ardwick, would allow for a greater number of homes to be built.

Council planning reports – including those relating to the area around Great Jackson Street – have regularly described the city centre as ‘inappropriate’ for affordable homes as a result.

Instead, developers have been paying one-off sums to the council, known as ‘section 106’ agreements,’ for affordable housing to be built elsewhere in Manchester. However, city centre councillors, several of whom were elected in a new wave of members last May, have repeatedly called for a strategy that would see cheaper homes built in the core of the city in order to create more balanced communities – and prevent the average Mancunian being priced out.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had also weighed into the debate earlier this year, telling the M.E.N. he believed social housing should be incorporated into new city centre schemes.

Now a paper due to go before next week’s executive – which also outlines new plans to build thousands of ‘genuinely’ affordable homes across the city by 2028, a third of them social housing – shows chiefs have agreed to actively consider the idea.

Referring to a ‘growing concern about city centre affordability,’ it says: “These concerns centre on whether the city centre is affordable for Mancunians. Developers who are not fully contributing to the number of affordable properties within schemes are making financial contributions to offsite provision. “There are concerns whether this money should be used to deliver affordable housing in the city centre.” Describing public feeling as ‘significant and growing’ on the issue, it says: “The council will complete, within 12 months, a feasibility study into a genuinely affordable housing scheme within the city centre of appropriate density for its location. “Should the feasibility study find such a scheme to be viable, subject to the standard scrutiny procedures of the council, the council shall proceed with the scheme.” It is understood backbenchers already have some ideas for suitable city centre sites, including on Willmott Street near to Home, and land near Wing Yip on Oldham Road. Such a move would mark a major departure for the town hall, although insiders suggested that even after carrying out the feasibility study, it may still prove to be unworkable due to the finances that underpin city centre development. As recently as last month, council leader Sir Richard Leese circulated an email to councillors – many of whom remained irritable about the town hall’s housing policies – insisting that the city centre is already affordable to Mancunians.

Two people on Manchester living wage could afford to live in the average two-bed flat, he said.

According to housing site Zoopla, the average asking rent for a two-bed flat in the city centre is a little over £1,500, and councillors met the claim with skepticism after two years of internal wrangling about the council’s direction on affordable housing generally.

As a result, a string of suggestions from backbenchers were taken to a private Labour group meeting last week, which resulted in the brand new affordable housing policy going before chiefs next week.

Alongside the city centre study, the council is proposing to build 3,000 ‘genuinely’ affordable housing over the next decade. A third of that would be at social rents – 60 per cent of market rate – while a third would be at ‘affordable’ rents, usually 80pc of market rate.

The remainder would be homes for shared ownership.