Andy Burnham has delivered his first major speech since announcing his ambition to become the next prime minister.
During the speech in Manchester, Burnham announced his intentions to create a No 10 North as part of plans to bring about the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen”, which will see an “extended operation” based in Manchester with the aim of making power flow to the Midlands, the South West and East of England.
Burnham said that No 10 North would also prioritise the building of more council homes.
Burnham said: “Britain has lost almost 1.5m council homes since the 1980s, and around the same number of people are now on housing waiting lists and have been there for a very long time.”
“Britain’s housing crisis is having a ruinous impact on its public finances. So working with local areas, No 10 North will oversee the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period.”
The plan will look to utilise vacant public land to reduce costs and focus on delivering high density development across UK towns.
No 10 North will also focus on regeneration, reindustrialisation and the reforming of essential utilities.
Chief executive of Shelter, Sarah Elliott, said that the council housebuilding plan could “utterly transform” Britain.
Elliott said: “Andy Burnham is right on the money here. Any government that is serious about fixing life’s foundations must start by delivering a new generation of social rent homes and strengthening the arm of councils to get building.”
“Council-built social homes once provided a stable basis for millions of people across the country to get on in life and succeed. Politicians have ignored this fact for far too long, while people’s hope dwindled away and our supply of genuinely affordable social rent homes fell through the floor.”
“Delivering the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period has the potential to utterly transform our country and restore the building blocks of people’s lives. To make this vision a reality, the government must set councils up to build by removing unsustainable debt and delivering a big boost to investment.”
Responding to the speech, Cllr Louise Gittins, chair of the Local Government Association, said: “Successive devolution agreements have demonstrated that devolving powers to local communities is the best way of unlocking the potential of people and their places, while boosting inclusive economic growth.”
“It is now vital that the government steps up its ambition to deliver genuine devolution right across England, giving councils who know their communities the power to tackle long-standing local and national challenges, including driving infrastructure investment, plugging skills gaps, building more affordable housing and boosting productivity.”
“By working together as equal partners across different levels of government, we can build prosperity and opportunity for our communities and businesses.”
Vanessa Hale, chief executive of Real Estate:UK, said: “The real estate sector has a critical role to play in boosting growth across the UK, working not only with national government, but also with newly empowered mayors and local leaders through genuine partnership working to deploy place-based funds, facilitate the development of industrial clusters, deliver the successful regeneration of places, and build new homes as part of a place-first, ‘good growth’ approach. With a stable and supportive policy framework, we can build the affordable and higher density homes that Andy Burnham says he wants.”
“However, the full benefits of this will only be delivered if the same radical approach to reforming the role of government is also applied to how government works with the private sector, including full recognition of the challenges that the real estate industry faces, such as the viability crisis which has effectively stalled building activity across the country, that enhanced local and regional authorities need the extra resourcing to match the scale of their ambition, and an understanding that the need for stability is paramount for those seeking to make long-term investment into the UK.”
Paul Rickard, chief executive of Pocket Living, said: “It is absolutely right to focus on how the UK can continue to support and grow its key industrial sectors, such as life sciences and our defence industrial complex, with empowered regional mayors and local authorities sitting at the heart of this. This enhanced devolution of powers and focus on innovative place-first good growth, including large-scale regeneration and housing, forms part of the bold thinking that we need to see happen and it is very pleasing to see housing being directly linked to the success of the UK’s overall economic strategy. The focus on public partnership and increased housing powers to all regions, including London, is likewise welcome. Whilst the aspiration to supercharge council housing is admirable, alongside this we also need to deliver homes for key workers and young professionals if our regions are to truly prosper and SMEs play an instrumental role in delivering local housing for local people and local place-based success.”
