Manchester City Council have announced that the city has seen more homes built over the last year (4,766) than all the 32 Greater London boroughs combined (4,261). The findings were showcased in a report to the Council’s Communities and Equalities Scrutiny Committee, and follow last week’s claims from Reform UK that Manchester hadn’t built any social housing “in decades.”
The figures represent another record-breaking year for Manchester, with 901 affordable homes completed, more than any point since the 1990’s, with 439 for social rent. The city is also bucking the national trend for affordable housing starts, recording an increase of 12% since 2022/23.
The Housing Strategy update shows that the city remains on track to meet its target to deliver at least 36,000 homes of all tenures by 2032, including 10,000 social, Council and genuinely affordable homes – 3,000 of which will be in the city centre.
13,555 homes have already been delivered since 2022 with more than 7,800 currently under construction, and a further 20,000 homes with planning approval or in the pipeline.
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In terms of affordable homes, there are 4,000 homes in the pipeline with around 1,450 under construction, 2,000 more with planning approval – and a further 690 awaiting a planning decision. 264 of the affordable homes completed were three-bed and larger, increasing access to larger family homes to help reduce overcrowding in the city.
With Andy Burnham now leaving the position of Manchester Mayor to take up the role of Prime Minister, the positive figures coming out of the city could be a strong indicator of an appetite for growth that could soon be mirrored nationwide. Burnham has made his focus on social housing clear in his first few days as PM, and a record-breaking number of housing completions in Manchester certainly lend gravity to his claims.
In tandem with the city’s Housing Strategy, the Council is also delivering innovative programmes to best use the city’s existing homes to meet demand.
Around 600 empty homes have been brought back into use since the creation of a new Empty Homes Team in 2024 with the aim of tackling long-term empty properties to bring them back into active use.
Residents in larger social homes who are in a position where they want a more manageable property can receive a £2,500 incentive to ‘right size’ that helps free up family properties elsewhere in the city. In the last two years, 195 larger homes have been made available for people on the housing register – with a target to support 250 moves in the next year alone.
Cllr Gavin White, Manchester City Council’s executive member for housing and regeneration, said:
“We set out to be ambitious with how we are delivering new housing for our residents because we know how important a decent, secure and safe home is for the success of Manchester people.
“Building genuinely affordable homes remains incredibly challenging but we continue to buck the national trend and we are seeing more new affordable homes built now than at any point this century – and to have built the homes we have year-on-year is testament to our vision to deliver for our residents.
“We have done housing differently. We aren’t solely reliant on private developers to deliver social and affordable housing. We are ramping up delivery by working closely with our housing partners, by accessing grant funding and using Council-owned brownfield land to deliver the homes we need. And the results speak for themselves.”
