More Power for Communities? We’re working on it…

Its a busy time for community action with important changes in motion.

Below, community leaders from North, Central and South Manchester share the priorities they have organised around through the Manchester Social Housing Commission process and to ensure their voices are heard within the draft Local Plan for Manchester – after something called the ‘Regulation 18 consultation’ closed yesterday. We are also working closely with a coalition of groups in Moss Side who are now looking to establish a neighbourhood forum and create their own Neighbourhood Plan!

At the same time in parliament, MPs are debating amendments to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment bill this week that would include: # Establishing a community ownership fund to enable voluntary and community organisations to purchase assets of community value; # Strengthen options for community stewardship of land and assets; and # Introduce a statutory requirement to assess government performance against its duty to provide:

Collyhurst & Miles Platting

Residents, community groups, churches, and projects have been joining together across Ancoats, Collyhurst and Miles Platting since 2019 through Miles Platting Community & Age-friendly Network or ‘MPCAN’. MPCAN launched the Social Homes for Manchester campaign in October 2023 on the site where they were calling for new social rent homes after a net loss of over 500 homes following a PFI-led regeneration gone wrong. They are delighted that social rent homes will now be built on three of the sites they had been calling to have developed for this purpose and to have achieved an increase from 5% social or affordable rents to 21% social rent in city council policy together with the Social Homes for Manchester coalition. 

Sue Anya, Miles Platting Savers and St Georges Youth and Community Centre on social rent housing targets:  

MPCAN’s priorities also include:

30% social rent homes as a minimum across the 15,000 homes to be delivered in total through the Victoria North development framework in a context of over 4,600 children living in Temporary Accommodation across the city. And a new district centre to be developed at the crossroads between Ancoats, Collyhurst and Miles Platting including:

• A multi-purpose community and social centre, community-led housing, and health and wellbeing joint services centre on the St Cuthberts Church site along the lines of that which was to be delivered under the Miles Platting PFI. Manchester City Council could work with the community and the GM Live Well programme to look at the possibility for a GM Live Well Centre on the St Cuthberts site and help to facilitate NHS partnership for a joint services centre.
• Healthy and affordable food retail is desperately needed in the area with a volunteer run social supermarket the only way for residents of Miles Platting to access healthy nutritious fruit and vegetables without taking two buses to the nearest supermarket.
• Health and wellbeing leisure facilities such as a leisure centre and library to replace that which was demolished.
• Health infrastructure is desperately needed to address rapidly increasing population including GPs surgeries, dental practices, and specialist clinics tailored to local needs.
• Investment in the improvement and protection of green spaces and development of green spaces into active lifestyle zones including through outdoor gyms and community gardens and allotment spaces.
• Improved transport infrastructure to enable older, disabled, and people with long-term conditions or mums with lots of children to easily travel between local locations and to food retail and healthy lifestyle venues.
• To reconsider plans to build on Vauxhall Gardens which is an important heritage site for the local community
• Protection and improvements to existing Gypsies, Travellers and showpeople sites

The Aquarius Community

Tenant organising in the Aquarius estate has a long and rich history dating back to the Hulme Alliance in the 1970s. Most recently Aquarius Tenants and Residents Association, Aquarius Community Savers, Hulme Tenants Union, On Top of the World Project and residents across high rise social housing blocks owned by Guinness Partnership and One Manchester have joined together in their calls to have their neighbourhood recognised as a residential area that is distinct from and requires different forms of planning and housing interventions to the City Centre and Oxford Road Corridor. They are delighted to see their estate has been marked as outside the city centre in the new draft Local Plan but the boundary is currently in the wrong place.

Bernard Sudlow, Aquarius TARA and Aquarius Community Savers, on rezoning the Aquarius estate: 

Aquarius tenants and residents and their community associations are also asking for:

• The inclusion of Hopton Court and Cooper House tower blocks within the rezoned Aquarius estate as key residential buildings linked to the estate.
• For a clear policy statement that: ‘all new homes should be safe in relation to the risk of fire; all new homes should have access to natural light; all new homes should demonstrate how they will be resilient to a changing climate; all new homes should be free from unacceptable and intrusive noise and light pollution; all new homes should not contribute to unsafe or illegal levels of indoor or ambient air pollution and must be built to minimise and where possible eliminate, the harmful impacts of air pollution on human health and the environment; and all new homes should be designed to provide year-round thermal comfort for inhabitants’.
• For a policy of at least 30% homes for social rent in all new developments of ten homes or above including a fair proportion of larger family homes not just one and two-bedroom apartments in a context of 4,600 children living in Temporary Accommodation across the city
• For stronger wording on developer contributions in line with the National Planning Policy Framework stating that: “the Council will seek contributions from development. These contributions will be relative to the scale and impact of the development and will ensure that Manchester’s communities are not adversely affected by development.’
• And, for a new policy on Community Involvement from the pre-application stage that gives communities a meaningful influence over the developments that shape their neighbourhoods and determine their health outcomes.

Wythenshawe Central

Diverse Wythenshawe women have been coming together to identify their priorities for poverty action since 2022, initially through the Women of Wythenshawe initiative, which saw community and faith groups taking action for systems change on Domestic Abuse, Housing and SEND. Now, through Wythenshawe Central Network which to date brings together over 130 local residents and 22 community and faith groups for a stronger voice over their needs and priorities for their own neighbourhood.

Mariam Karim, Better Things Ambassador, presented Wythenshawe Central’s priorities to the Manchester Social Housing Commission in December 2024 which have since been further developed and submitted this week as their ‘Regulation 18’ consultation response. Here, Mariam shares on that experience of participating in the Commission process:

Zoe Marlow, emerged from her community leadership roles with Women of Wythenshawe and as Housing Commissioner to be successfully elected as a local ward councillor for Woodhouse Park in September. Here, she speaks about what it was like to represent Wythenshawe Central Network on the housing commission for the preceding 18 months:

Wythenshawe Central Network’s priorities for the Local Plan are principally focused on the Wythenshawe Town Centre redevelopment within which they are calling for:

• At least 600 of all new homes to be for social rent within the Wythenshawe Civic Centre regeneration area to meet genuine local need and to tackle Manchester’s housing crisis.
• A fair proportion of low- and mid-rise, family-friendly social rent housing. This is particularly important given that the first three housing developments will be, in the majority, one and two bedroom apartments.
• Requirement for leasehold and governance arrangements on new retail, leisure, enterprise and community infrastructure/facilities, which can control the cost of these facilities for local residents both in terms of use (entrance fees/tickets etc) and potential hire or lease such as for small businesses and young entrepreneurs from the local area.
• Accountable governance structures for new community facilities to ensure these reflect local priorities and needs long into the future.
• Proactive provisions to protect long-term residents from displacement as investment and housing markets change.

The Local Plan process continues. Next year a second draft of the Local Plan will be published and come out for a Regulation 19 consultation and then there will be an examination in public.

For more information or to get involved please visit https://www.socialhomes4mcr.org.uk/get-involved.