Revised masterplan unveiled for Greater Manchester housing and jobs

A masterplan to revitalise Greater Manchester towns and boost the local economy will go to public consultation next month.

The Places for Everyone plan, which replaces the controversial Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF), sets out the development pipeline for nine Greater Manchester boroughs.

It includes a long-term plan for jobs, new homes, and sustainable growth.

The plan, which covers Manchester, Salford, Trafford, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside, Bolton and Bury, is subject to the support of the councillors representing the individual local authorities and will be presented at a joint committee meeting on 20 July.

The aim will be to bring the plan to public consultation in August.

Places for Everyone sits alongside a host of schemes that are being rolled out across the city-region, including: Green Spaces Fund; Green space enhancement work; 30,000 zero-carbon homes for social rent; Mills Strategy; Town Centre Mayoral Development Corporations; and Nature Recovery.

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: “Greater Manchester is setting out a clear and ambitious vision for new homes, enhanced green spaces and revitalised town centres.

“Linked to our plans for a zero-carbon future and good jobs and growth, this vision represents a major milestone as our city-region maps out its recovery from the pandemic.

“If we want to build back from the pandemic in a way that brings everyone with us and strikes at the root of inequality, we need a plan that strengthens our economy and our society against future challenges, and puts us in the best position to take advantage of new opportunities.

“We are already using our unique devolved powers and transforming our towns and cities so that they’re fit for the future.

“Through the pioneering Mayoral Development Corporation in Stockport and Oldham’s Mills Strategy, work is well under way to transform our urban centres by delivering good quality homes, sustainable public transport, and regeneration of the kind that will genuinely ‘level up’ our places.

“By building more low-carbon homes and equipping people with new retrofitting skills, we can also help to meet our goal of carbon neutrality by 2038 and lay the foundations for investment in green industry and innovation.

“We can no longer accept that the car is always king, and Places for Everyone will set out where inclusive growth can take place in areas well connected by an accessible, affordable, high-quality public transport infrastructure – our Bee Network.”

The plan is the result of a process that began with the publication of the first Greater Manchester Spatial Framework in 2016 which failed to win the support of Stockport Council.

Since then, work has been carried out to reduce the number of proposed sites and the amount of green belt take within sites, and to propose new green belt additions – the result being a 60 per cent reduction in the impact on green belt land compared to the 2016 plan.

Ninety per cent of housing allocations in the new plan are in urban areas.

Greater Manchester has already committed £97m from the Government’s Brownfield Housing Fund to unlock brownfield sites for development.

In total, 57 schemes have been identified to benefit from two tranches of the funding allocation, and a minimum of 5,500 homes on brownfield will be delivered through this funding, including more than 2,000 affordable homes.

Mayor Paul Dennett, City Mayor of Salford and GMCA Lead for Housing and Homelessness, said: “Now is the time to be moving forward with an ambitious vision for a recovery focused on delivering good-quality affordable homes, creating good jobs, and boosting our transition to a low-carbon economy.

“This is the right thing to do– not just to drive our economic recovery from the pandemic, but to empower the work we’re doing to tackle inequalities and build a better future for everyone in Greater Manchester.”