This blog breaks down the construction-related highlights of Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester Strategy. It covers major transport plans like the Piccadilly overhaul, the 75,000-home housing pledge, and the creation of Mayoral Development Corporations to speed up growth. It explores how these initiatives could reshape the sector, create long-term opportunities, and reflect a broader model of localised economic planning.

Ten-year plans are the flavour of the day for those in power looking to cement a legacy that isn’t defined by the present economic outlook.

Hot on the heels of the government’s industrial and infrastructure strategies for the next decade, ‘King of the North’ Andy Burnham follows suit with his Greater Manchester strategy, titled ‘Together, We Are Greater Manchester’.

The comprehensive document, launched this month to a packed house at Manchester’s new Campfield event space, lays out detailed and ambitious plans to create ‘A thriving city region where everyone can live a good life.’ Pleasingly, if unsurprisingly given the sheer volume of work in the city region, construction features heavily.

Much like central government’s plans, it appears that the mayor has hitched his economic wagon to the sector in a big way, with big plans on housing and infrastructure to not only provide provision for the people of the region, but to create jobs in the immediate and long-term.

There’s plenty of ambition, and plenty to get excited about, and plenty of detail to follow. Here, we breakdown the key construction initiatives found across the report’s 119 pages.

Contents

• Transport – Kings Cross of the North?

• Housing – Not Just a Numbers Game

• Investment and Industry – Do You Know Your MDC from Your MDZ?

• A Strategy of Micro-Devolution?

• FAQs

Transport – Kings Cross of the North, anyone?

Anyone following Andy Burnham’s tenure as Mayor will know that transport has featured prominently in policy making, particularly the introduction of the Bee Network and bringing the region’s bus network under public control. It’s no surprise to see transport play a key role in the region’s plans for the coming decade.

One of the most exciting and eye-catching announcements in strategy came in the form of the proposed investment into Piccadilly, as the mayor aims to make the station the ‘Kings Cross of the North’. In practice, that means the creation of an underground tram and train station, complete with a high-speed rail link to Liverpool and regeneration of the surrounding area, all by 2050.

It may seem like a long way off, but 25-years to undertake ambitious underground works beneath an already busy station, not to mention the creation of a high-speed link to a city region 40-miles away, is some undertaking – and means plenty of work for the region’s civils, groundworks and other businesses.

On the other side of the city, and on the doorstep of SLG Towers, a new tram stop on the Rochdale line will be developed to service the new homes being developed in the Victoria North/NOMA/Green Quarter areas of the city.

Outside of the city centre, the much-discussed work to bring Metrolink to Stockport will begin by 2030, though the document doesn’t appear to layout timescales for completion.

There’s a big focus on the wider region’s transport links, with new bus routes, tramlines and train stations promised in order to create ‘an integrated, lower cost transport system’. Again, there will likely be more detail to follow on what this looks like, and what the resultant opportunities for the region’s supply chain look like.

Housing – Not just a numbers game

If there’s one facet of the built environment that has permeated the public consciousness, it’s housing. On that basis, the figure that jumps off the page is the mayor’s pledge to create 75,000 new homes in the region by 2030, including the creation 10,000 affordable net zero homes.

That number may not seem that grand in the context of the 1.5 million homes repeatedly pushed by central government, but the delivery of this many homes in Greater Manchester over the next four years would provide 5% of the national target – which isn’t to be sniffed at (not least as many commentators believe that we’ll likely fall short of the national target anyway).

Those that have been keeping an eye on local and regional media recently will likely have heard the Mayor double down on his criticisms of housing policy going back decades, with particular venom used to describe the impacts of ‘Right to Buy’, which Burnham credits as one of the principal reasons that the region’s 10 local authorities spent a combined £75 million on temporary accommodation for the region’s displaced families last year, as noted in a 2024 report commissioned by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority – more here.

In an attempt to address the issue, the strategy pledges that by 2027 Greater Manchester will be building more social housing than it is losing through right-to-buy – an admirable aim that would not only make a difference when it comes to resources and finances, but to those in the region that need somewhere safe for their families. I’ve said it before, but it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that all of these stats relate to people and their lives – and policies like this are a timely reminder of why the work that the sector does is so crucial, and why having the support of policy makers through initiatives like this is such a huge help.

As well as affordable and Net Zero homes, the strategy also takes in the kind of housing stock that the region needs, taking an ‘all life stages’ approach with provision of the creation of increased numbers of single units for young people, and accessible housing for disabled residents. There’s also plans to ensure the needs of an ageing region are met by making sure that new mainstream homes feature inclusive design elements, and that both age-friendly developments and housing for those with specialist needs.

On the subject of ‘all life stages’, the Strategy promises support for elderly people in the region to ‘rightsize’. While this has the potential to be framed as a regressive move, similar to the bedroom tax rolled out by previous national governments, the stated aims of the move are to free up existing housing stock and provide the region’s elderly residents with adequate provision for their care needs.

The issue is increasingly on the minds of the public, too, with a recent report from the Centre for Ageing Better finding that two in three people (66%) think they would have problems moving around their current home and carrying out everyday tasks without major adaptations to their property if they developed a health issue or serious injury – more here.

As noted above, with housing stock at a premium, an ageing population (nationally), and a central government with ambitions to deliver more care provision in the community, once senses that this could be one of the more difficult parts of the strategy to deliver against – even compared to the ‘Kings Cross of the North’ ambitions.

Investment and industry – Do you know your MDC from your MDZ?

Anyone reading all of this and thinking that it sounds fine in principle, but that it doesn’t answer the question of how we intend to build all of this new housing and infrastructure at the pace needed to hit the 2030 and 2035 markers laid down.

One of the cornerstone policies in the strategy is the introductions of a new Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs), which are statutory bodies designed to speed up development and attract investment within a specific area, with powers including land acquisition, planning, and infrastructure functions.

The launch event saw Sebastian Coe announced as chair designate of the Old Trafford MDC with a remit for overseeing the areas regeneration led by the redevelopment of Manchester United’s stadium and the surrounding neighbourhood, the biggest sports-led project in the UK since London 2012.

In an interesting, headline grabbing development, comedian Steve Coogan was announced as the co-chair of the Middleton MDC.

In addition to Old Trafford and Middleton, an MDC will be created in Bolton to drive growth in its town centre, with another focused on moving along the highly anticipated Atom Valley site across Rochdale, Bury and Oldham, which aims to make the region a global hub for advanced manufacturing and materials.

Elsewhere, an MDC for Ashton and Stalybridge will focus on transport investment, while a newly created MDZ in Leigh will see the creation of a new University Campus for health and social care.

A strategy of micro-devolution?

It’s entirely anecdotal, but this MDC approach and the concept of having centres of excellence for different sectors across the region feels similar to the German model of devolution, with regional centres each focused on a non-competing area of the economy, for the benefit of the whole.

Whether it works, only time will tell, but it’s a bold approach that makes logical sense.

More than that, it highlights just how crucial the work of the construction sector is to the Greater Manchester region, and the wider UK, if economic ambitions are to be met. Not only will the infrastructure, transport and housing projects outlined in the strategy open up huge opportunities for the sector in the region, once complete they’ll create jobs within the sector (and the in the broader economy) for decades to come.

He’s already popular in these parts, but pulling this off would surely cement Andy Burnham’s legacy as ‘King of the North’.

You can access the full report here.