Andy Burnham vows to end housing crisis within a decade, building 10,000 council homes by 2028

Andy Burnham has vowed to end the housing crisis within a decade, promising to build a 'new generation' of 10,000 council homes by 2028. In the first announcement following his 'emphatic' re-election last week, the Greater Manchester mayor said he would stop 'boring' people about buses and put housing 'centre stage' in his third term.

The Labour mayor has also called for the Right to Buy scheme, which allows tenants to buy their council homes, to be suspended. He said that 30,000 new council homes in the city-region should be permanently exempt from the policy with local authorities given powers to suspend the scheme in areas with high demand for social housing.

Mr Burnham also announced that plans to give tenants of private rented housing a right to request a property check will be trialed in part of Greater Manchester later this year. And he said he would expand his A Bed Every Night emergency accommodation scheme, introduced in his first mayoral term, to tackle the rise in rough sleeping.

READ MORE: Lessons from Andy Burnham on power and popularity after 'emphatic' re-election

The announcements followed a 'walk about' of Manchester city centre this morning (May 7) in which the mayor joined homelessness support workers on the streets. Mr Burnham, who did the same thing on his first day as mayor seven years ago, noted a difference in the support being offered to rough sleepers, but said there are still 'too many'.

He said: "We can't keep talking about a housing crisis in this country without getting stuck into the detail of what it means to fix it. We start by setting a new ambition for the city-region to fix the housing crisis within a decade.

"That means building tens of thousands more homes for social rent - a new generation of council homes within our 10 districts. But it is also about raising the standard of housing in both the social rented and private rented sector."

Mr Burnham set out his ambition to build 10,000 new homes for social rent - at least 1,000 in each borough - by the end of this mayoral term in 2028. He said that a detailed delivery plan will be published before the end of the year.

This includes identifying brownfield sites where these new homes can be built. Mr Burnham said that Greater Manchester's land commission - a body featuring all of the major public land holders in the city-region, including the NHS and government departments - will be asked to free up land to build those homes 'as quickly as possible'.

The mayor said he would also create a Greater Manchester Housing First unit, bringing together people working in a range of disciplines across the city-region to help make his plans a reality. And he announced his intentions to turn the Housing First pilot, which aims to support homeless people get back on their feed, into a permanent scheme.

He also called for a change in the law to prevent tenants of 30,000 new properties planned over the next 15 years from buying their homes. Under the Right to Buy scheme, council and social housing tenants can buy their homes.

But Mr Burnham said this scheme has seen Greater Manchester lose hundreds of truly affordable homes every year and creates a disincentive for local authorities looking to build council homes. He called for 30,000 new homes to be exempt from the policy 'in perpetuity' and for town halls to be given powers to suspend the scheme in 'hotspots'.

He said: "The housing crisis is deepening every year because of the way the policy is currently working. I am not against people having the right ultimately to own their own home. It's not about that. It's about saying that goes completely. It's just getting it into a more sensible place to support a serious solution to the housing crisis."

Mr Burnham said that he has already had 'very good' discussions with senior Labour figures about a housing delivery plan for Greater Manchester. He described the prospect of a Labour government working with regional mayors as a 'real opportunity for change' that was not available when the party last won power in 1997, before his role existed.