Whose City? Whose Plan? Local Plan Consultation now open

Manchester’s Draft Local Plan out for 10-week consultation

Manchester City Council released their draft Local Plan for a 10-week consultation period on Monday 22^nd September. You can access the draft plan with full supporting documentation and submit a consultation response here.

The Council will be holding the following consultation events:

• Wednesday 22nd October, 4pm-7pm – Gorton Hub, 27 Garratt Way, M18 8HE. The hub is on Hyde Road at the junction with Whitewell Way. 
• Tuesday 28th October, 4pm-7pm – North City Library, Rochdale Road, Harpurhey, M9 4AF.
• Wednesday 29th October, 3.30pm-7pm – Wythenshawe Forum, Forum Centre, Simonsway, Wythenshawe, M22 5RX.
• Thursday 6th November, 11am-2pm – Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD.
• Thursday 6th November, 4pm-7pm – Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD.

What is the Local Plan? Why should I care?

All Local Authorities must produce a Local Plan. Topics that Local Plans usually cover include housing, employment, green space, and retail. They also identify where development should take place in a city and where development should be restricted.

If you want a say in what can be developed in your local area and the city – you need to know about this!

Local Plans have a long life-span because they take so long to review each time. The last Local Plan in Manchester was published in 2012 and is still the current policy for the city. Some aspects of Planning are still determined by the Unitary Development Plan that was published in 1995!

This new Local Plan is likely to continue to shape what kinds of housing (and other facilities) can be developed, and where, for at least the next 10 years. 

Why is it so important for Manchester communities to submit a response?

Manchester is at the sharp end of the housing crisis in both availability and affordability. There has been a net loss of more than 16,000 social rent homes to Right to Buy alone since 1979. There are now approximately 20,000 households on the waiting list for a home in Manchester. From 2015 to 2023, the city experienced an 84% increase in the average house price paid and a 61% increase in the average monthly private rent (much higher than the England average). These increases far exceed the 18.7% growth in median hourly earnings in Manchester over the same period, contributing to a situation where 1 in 5 households in Manchester are living in fuel poverty.

While the new Local Plan does introduce some welcome increased targets for affordable housing and housing for social rent, it does not go far enough to address the housing crisis amidst a supportive national and city-regional political and funding environment where £39 billion has been invested in affordable and social housing of which SH4M have learned that approximately £2.5 billion will be invested in Greater Manchester.

It is also important to submit any objections to the plan now to be able to participate in later stages of the decision-making process. The process for passing the Local Plan into policy has several stages. After this initial consultation (called a Regulation 18 consultation) there will be a second version published which will also go out for consultation (a Regulation 19 consultation). Then there will be an Examination in Public.

This is a chance for community representatives to address the national Planning Inspector directly at a public event. Only those who have submitted objections during earlier stages of the process will have the right to attend and speak at the public examination of the plan.

At the end of the process, the Inspector will make a recommendation on the Main Modifications required for the Local Plan to pass inspection and be adopted.

As an example, you can view clips from Days 1-5 of an examination of York City Council’s Local Plan from 2018 here. Notice all the white men in suits? This is not what we want to see in Manchester!

But what can I do, really?

This can all feel very technical. You have the power to work together with others and your local councillors to advocate for your community’s priorities for your own local area and for the city.  SH4M can help.

Residents and community groups are coming together across the city, within their own neighbourhoods, and to join forces across neighbourhood boundaries, to share their priorities for the homes, communities, and the city they want to live in and co-create.

SH4M’s headline request is for Manchester City Council to include a minimum target of 30% social rent in all new housing developments of ten homes or more in the Local Plan. Research evidence tells us this is the minimum amount we need to address the housing crisis. This is possible to do. Other similar cities are setting targets of 40% and 50% social rent.

Here are some suggestions for how you can get involved and advance your own local priorities:

1.      Join the campaign: you will receive information, calls to action, and updates on the process.

2.      Invite us to run a workshop in your local area: socialhomes4mcr@gmail.com.

3.      Engage your ward councillors: they may be interested to work with you to organise a local meeting to discuss priorities for your local area and represent these through a submission to the Local Plan Consultation when it opens.

4.      Submit a response to the Local Plan consultation when it opens. There is more information on the MCC website here: https://tinyurl.com/2h7hc46c.

We will be publishing our own local plan consultation response on here soon. If you are signed up to the mailing list we will share this with you in case you would like to support similar asks in your own response.