Greater Manchester housing race shapes contest to succeed Andy Burnham

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Greater Manchester housing election

Highlights

Labour frontrunner Bev Craig pledges 50,000 affordable homes by 2039, housing benefit caps, more public land, and Right to Buy suspension powers.
Green candidate Geraldine Coggins proposes rent controls and tens of thousands of new affordable homes at a £4bn cost funded by borrowing and public finance.
Labour leads in polls after round two, but attacks on the Greater Manchester Housing Investment Fund and housing affordability pose ongoing political risks.

Housing policy and campaign pledges

As reported by Financial Times, the three main parties are centring their campaigns on housing in a city region where rapid high-rise development has become a political flashpoint. Labour candidate Bev Craig, the current Manchester council leader and frontrunner in the race, says the prominence of skyscrapers reflects wider doubts over whether residents are sharing in the benefits of economic growth.

Craig argues inequality remains a generational problem and is promising 50,000 new affordable homes by 2039, capped at housing benefit rates. She also wants more public land to be released by government and is seeking devolved powers to suspend the Right to Buy scheme for council tenants.

Green candidate Geraldine Coggins is attacking what she calls growth for growth's sake, using luxury tower blocks and high rents as symbols of a housing model that is not serving local needs. She is promising tens of thousands of affordable homes, says the plan would cost £4bn and be funded through borrowing and public financing, and has also introduced rent controls into the mayoral debate by calling for those powers to be devolved.

Reform UK candidate Sian Astley is also focusing on affordable housing, but with more emphasis on retrofitting existing social homes. Her party's manifesto says too many towns and communities have been left behind even as central Manchester prospers.

Development model and electoral implications

Manchester's skyline remains the most visible sign of a longer economic revival built on professional services growth and graduate retention after decades of deindustrialisation. But that expansion has coincided with rising rents, squeezed incomes and a surge in family homelessness, making housing affordability a central test of the region's development model.

Opposition parties are also targeting the Greater Manchester Housing Investment Fund, a devolved financing pot designed to support private development and boost investor confidence. Reform says it will expose luxury developer contracts, while the Greens point to taxpayer-backed support for city-centre towers as evidence that public money is benefiting developers more than residents.

The fund has also faced legal scrutiny. Developer Weis Group, which received no loans, has twice taken the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to court over the allocation of funding and has lost both cases, most recently last month.

Despite those attacks, polling by YouGov and Find Out Now shows Labour ahead after the second round of voting, with Reform and the Greens competing for second place. Professor Jon Tonge of the University of Liverpool says affordable housing remains a vulnerability for Labour, but adds that the timing of the contest still favours Craig during Burnham's political honeymoon.

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