The Government was forced to backtrack on its stance that Greater Manchester would be blocked from accessing central government funding following the devolution deal following an intervention by Oldham MP Jim McMahon.
Greater Manchester secured an agreement to establish the Housing Investment Fund to boost local housing development. To date the fund has been primarily used to support the development of private apartment schemes in Manchester city centre and on the fringe of the city centre within Salford’s boundaries.

The Housing Investment Fund is designed to be a recyclable loan fund and as such requires that all schemes are commercially viable, that the developer is credit worthy with interest rates set at a commercial level to conform to state aid rules.

The challenge for many parts of Greater Manchester isn’t the development of apartment lead schemes in the city centre, but the need to bring forward brownfield sites which have a viability gap and as such are not attractive to developers seeking to make a profit.

Research undertaken by the House of Commons Library highlighted that almost 3,000 hectares of brownfield land remains undeveloped in Greater Manchester.

Jim McMahon said; “As the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework looks to identify additional development land, some of which will be in the existing Greenbelt, firm proposals must be developed to bring forward previously developed land.

I am committed to fighting to urban renewal and positive development in our communities. To do this we will need to create a programme which addresses the fact that some sites are simply not attractive to developers because of the cost of bringing them to market and removing former contamination for instance.”

When Jim McMahon wrote to the Housing Minister to ask what support would be available the initial response came as a surprise to council chiefs in Greater Manchester. The Minister was firm in his response that because Greater Manchester had received the Housing Investment Fund it would NOT be eligible for future government housing funding.

Jim McMahon raised this immediately with officials and who were clear that this was not part of the devolution agreement.

Within a week the Housing Minister was forced to backtrack confirming that Greater Manchester would now be able to bid for future funding.

Jim McMahon went onto say; “We must now see a plan put in place to tackle the oversupply of low quality, low value housing which blight our communities, but in doing so ensure that communities are put first in any changes that may follow.

We must now see a brownfield development fund to address the commercially unviable element of the 3,000 hectares of undeveloped land. It isn’t good enough to say the market will decide when communities are being blighted by these sites.”

Government and the Housing and Land Commission should bring forward, as a matter of urgency, which publically owned land and properties they intend to sell for development. For too long individual government departments have been closing facilities like courts and offices without proper coordination.

There should be local accountability for all of this to ensure the type and quality of housing being built is what the community wants and needs, not just cramming development in to boost numbers.

In concluding Jim said; “This is not a small issue; for many it is the most important issue faced by their community and as a local MP championing for a better deal they can count on my continued support – and fierce challenge.”

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