It’s Time for a Social Rent Revolution!
The winds of political change were felt through the Council Chamber at Manchester Town Hall on Friday afternoon as the Manchester Social Housing Commission launched their final report and recommendations to a room of over 100 housing and planning professionals, councillors, officers, housing activists, residents and communities.
You can watch clips of different sections of the event using the links at the bottom of this article.
Chaired by The Right Reverend Dr David Walker, Bishop of Manchester, and opened by Cllr Bev Craig, Leader of Manchester City Council, the event began with powerful community testimonies. One single mum wept as she described her experiences of fleeing domestic abuse with her two disabled and asthmatic children only to find herself stuck in poor quality damp and mouldy private sector accommodation having to carry her wheelchair-bound child up and down the stairs several times a day to use the toilet in a house with no aids and adaptations.
Vicky Leigh, a Commissioner and Assistant Principal of Manchester Academies Trust, described the experiences of families supported through their At Home project through which they have supported over 300 families. Vicky talked of a family who have been able to stay together in the same community in secure tenancy social rent accommodation in an area where many families have been and continue to be displaced because of the lack of decent and affordable homes. Vicky described Clare as “one of the lucky ones”. She has one daughter in year 10 living at home with her, and two older daughters, one living with her, and another living nearby with her own family in their own secure social rent home. Living close together means they can all support each other with school runs and childcare. On their journey to this situation however, they had lived in such poor-quality social housing that their ceiling collapsed and the bathroom from the flat above fell through into their home.
Lina Dowouna and Reverend Kate Gray of Wythenshawe Central Network shared their experiences of tokenistic resident involvement and consultation processes in the latest wave of regeneration in Wythenshawe Town Centre. Reverend Kate explained that Wythenshawe Central Network know their own communities and know what kinds of tools and techniques work best, yet barely any local representatives have attended the workshops and meetings WCN have organised to gather the community’s views and priorities and share inspiring ideas for the future. This needs to change to rebuild trust:
“It really matters that this isn’t being done by the council. That makes a difference to people who feel excluded and done to. And I am sad to say that in the conversations that we have had in Wythenshawe, many local councillors are consistently absent from those conversations. And I want to challenge you to attend, and listen, and take part. That will help build active trust.”
Pledges to action
Bernard Sudlow of Hulme Community Forum and Sue Thomas O’Flaherty of Lifted Carers and Wythenshawe Central Network put a series of asks to key stakeholders who had agreed to participate as panellists at the event.
All panellists including Steve Fyfe for GMCA; Cllr Bev Craig, Leader of the Council; Cllr Gavin White, Executive Member for Housing and Regeneration; Matt Jones, interim Chair of the Manchester Housing Providers Partnership and Charlie Norman, Chair of the GM Housing Providers Partnership pledged to work with Commissioners to establish a Social Homes for Greater Manchester Scrutiny Panel focused on ensuring the Commission’s recommendations are taken forward in Manchester and across GM, that will meet quarterly until the next General Election.
Bishop David thanked Afzal Khan MP and Hannah Spencer MP for their attendance (despite having to leave early for constituency surgeries) and explained he will be personally following up with the Greater Manchester All Party Parliamentary Group of MPs to explore how to advance the Commission’s national policy recommendations.
In addition to participation in the scrutiny panel, Matt Jones Interim Chair of the Manchester Housing Providers Partnership and Charlie Norman, Chair of the GM Housing Providers Partnership expressed their full support and pledged to work with partners to ensure repairs are being carried out in a timely fashion and investment is made to remove dangerous damp and mould; and to ensure that providers are limiting demolitions to cases of last resort.
Cllr Bev Craig and Cllr Gavin White acknowledged that there was more work to do to ensure Manchester City Council works in collaboration with communities when planning for local areas. In addition toparticipation in the scrutiny panel, they committed to working with Social Homes for Manchester to co-create a policy on Community Led Development and expressed their political commitment to achieving a target of 30% social rent in the new Local Plan for Manchester.
Cllr White said:
“When we go to Regulation 19, we need that feedback: give us that evidence to present to the inspector to ensure that we can get the Local Plan through. It is the political aspiration to get 30% social rent entirely but that’s what we need in Regulation 19.”
Addressing inequalities
Dr Cordelle Ofori, Director of Public Health for Manchester City Council, who was invited to share her expertise on the links between health and housing inequality said:
“I am really supportive of this because the Right to Health and the Right to a Home go hand in hand. In Manchester […] between the poorest and the most affluent parts of the city, for boys it’s a 9-year gap in life expectancy and for girls it’s a 7-year gap. That’s completely unacceptable …But the things that make the biggest difference to health inequality are the things that sit outside of health services, and housing is a really important part of that […] If all of your money is going on keeping a roof over your head, you haven’t got much left for everything else. It’s also important for children’s education, it’s important for being able to get more training to move up the job ladder and get a better job, it’s important for so many things.”
Cordelle highlighted Making Manchester Fairer’s three key focus areas of (i) Shifting power to communities; (ii) Tackling poverty including fuel poverty; and (iii) Tackling racism and discrimination. Cordelle highlighted how racially minoritised groups are more likely to live in social housing, more likely to live in poor quality housing, and more likely to be in housing that is overcrowded; and the need to address the particular housing needs of disabled families. She called on all partners engaged in taking this work forwards to think about: what are the implications specifically for different population groups in Manchester amidst these recommendations; and how can we ensure these inequalities are addressed in the actions that are taken.
Celebrations and next steps
Several contributors celebrated the approach that has been taken by the Commission which you can read about in the concluding pages of the main report which shares detail on the methodology, challenges, and success factors as evaluated by Commissioners.
Bishop David thanked colleagues at Manchester City Council for their support and engagement without whom the process would not have been possible and added:
“This has been a really exceptional engagement for me. I have sat on a large number of housing commissions over a large number of years…and yes, you have meetings and you visit a few places, and you produce a report and present your recommendations, and yeah we’re doing all of that. But the distinctive thing about this, is the extent to which it’s been the voices of people living in social housing or living in estates around the city who have driven the process forward. That has been unique. I’ve long been committed to what they call coproduction and codesign, but I’ve never seen it done so determinedly as the Manchester Social Housing Commission has done it.”
The SH4M coalition is the legacy structure which will now take forward the Commission’s findings and recommendations and seek to maximise implementation, working always in partnership with community leaders across Manchester, Greater Manchester and England. The coalition will publish an annual progress tracker each year at least until the next General Election.
Together, Commissioners have met with Ministers, ministry teams, representatives of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Greater Manchester, and special advisers; have submitted written evidence to successive national consultations and audit committees; and have presented evidence to Lords and MPs. Partner organisations such as Mustard Tree met directly with Angela Rayner in 2024 to share on the extent and impacts of the housing and homelessness crisis in Manchester in advance of the April 2025 budget.
Importantly, throughout these engagements we have developed new connections and relationships that have supported ongoing advocacy, parliamentary questions and ministry negotiation on community rights in planning, and new opportunities for joint working, including: the Women’s Budget Group on the gendered impacts of the housing and climate crisis; and the Lloyds Local Collaborations programme.
A key request to the GM APPG is to work with SH4M to establish a working group to advocate for the reforms needed nationally to enable accelerated delivery of ecologically sustainable social rent homes across Greater Manchester. We look forward to working with Manchester City Council and partners across Greater Manchester through the new Social Homes for GM Scrutiny Panel and a wealth of other legacy projects. These include: new neighbourhood planning processes in Hulme and Moss Side; work to explore Community Land Trust pilots in Miles Platting and Wythenshawe; a network of organised communities with a deeper understanding of housing and planning systems and potential community led placemaking innovations just as five Manchester Pride in Place areas have been announced; and a new transparency and accountability data portal project with GMCA. A new Social Homes for Trafford coalition has also launched; and we are keen to share learning with groups across the city-region and nationally.
To stay informed, you can sign up to the Social Homes for Manchester mailing list.
CLIPS OF THE LAUNCH EVENT
More Stories
Learning from East Marsh
Pride in Place Manchester
Neighbourhood Planning in Hulme
What does Reeves’ announcement mean for Manchester’s homeless and overcrowded families?
The Manchester Social Housing Commission welcomes Rachel Reeves’ announcement of £39 billion for social and affordable housing, but questions remain on social rent..
Residents from some of Manchester’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods today broadly welcomed the Chancellor’s promises of increased funding for new and existing social and affordable housing but deep concerns remain about the cost of living crisis.
Zoe Marlow, Manager of Dandelion Foodbank in Wythenshawe and Community Commissioner said:
“It’s great to hear that the government has nearly doubled investment in affordable and social housing, but I am really worried about the proposed 10 years of above inflation rent increases they have announced in combination with all the welfare cuts.
Here in Wythenshawe, there is a lot of disability – I myself have a long term condition – so a lot of people can’t work – if they are putting up rents, they also need to make sure people have enough to live on. I see mums every week at the food bank who can’t afford to feed their children because of the cost of living crisis so how are they supposed to find even more rent with no additional income for food?”
The Manchester Social Housing Commission was launched in July 2024 in partnership with Manchester City Council, housing and climate justice charities and other social landlords in the city. Commissioners have been producing evidence about the need for a massive boost in long-term investment in sustainable homes for social rent and certainty over rent increases to help social housing providers build more homes and refurbish their existing stock.
Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, who chairs the Commission said:
“We are delighted to see that Government is listening to the many and diverse communities, charities, local authorities, and providers across the country who have been raising their voices for so long on the need for urgent action on the housing crisis.
£39 billion is certainly going to help. But the government needs to go further and commit the majority of that funding to building new homes for social rent with clear and enforceable targets.
Otherwise, we fear that this investment will mainly go towards so-called Affordable Rent, which is usually 80% of market rent and will not help clear the 19,000 households on Manchester’s housing waiting list or the 3000 households living in temporary accommodation.”
The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) contained a number of other positive announcements on housing, including protecting spending on homelessness and rough sleeping, more money for early interventions to prevent homelessness and to support local authorities in England to increase the supply of good quality temporary accommodation and drive down the costs of private provision.
The Warm Homes Plan will also help to cut bills by hundreds of pounds per year for families across the country by upgrading homes through insulation, heating and solar panels.
It comes however in the same week that MPs have been debating the Planning & Infrastructure Bill which is currently a missed opportunity to ensure that these funds for new homes will meet requirements for social rent and sustainability, including a failure to ensure national targets for the number of social rent homes required.
Dr James Vanderventer from Manchester Metropolitan University who also sits on the Commission said:
“There is a lot of good news in the CSR, but building new homes for social rent at scale needs more than just capital and rental income. The government should look at our proposals for changing existing rules on grant funding to enable more flexibility, how to unlock cheaper land for social housebuilding, increase local authority capacity to build, re-use existing empty homes and use the tax system in more innovative ways to incentivise building and retrofitting, and create new revenue streams to help fund it.”
The Manchester Social Housing Commission launched their second policy brief – How to fund and deliver sustainable homes for social rent – ahead of Reeves’ announcement setting out a range of innovative measures through which investments could be made into homes for social rent together with the cost savings that are achieved through social rent delivery.
The Commission’s first policy brief was launched by Community Savers representative for Wythenshawe Central Network Zoe Marlow, and Thirza Amina Asanga Rae in the House of Lords in November.
More Stories
Learning from East Marsh
Pride in Place Manchester
Neighbourhood Planning in Hulme
The Untold Stories of Manchester’s Housing Crisis
Tenants need to join forces across Manchester neighbourhoods. This was the key message arising from SH4M’s first film screening and campaign workshop at St Cuthbert’s church in Miles Platting in February.
This was the first in a programme of events that will take place across the city throughout 2025.
What is the City but the People? is a short film co-created by two inspiring women leaders from Moss Side and Wythenshawe to raise awareness about the urgency of the housing crisis across the city.
MPCAN (Miles Platting Community and Age-friendly Network) were the first coalition to host the SH4M campaign to screen the documentary and raise awareness with their local community about easy and urgent actions they themselves can take to support the collective effort to get more social rent homes delivered across the city.
A key focus of the current work is the new Local Plan which will be published for an 8-week consultation in Summer 2025 by Manchester City Council.
Download our Local Plan Handbook here
Download our Campaign Information booklet here
Planning can be very technical and boring! But if you were ever going to engage in planning this is the policy to wake up to! The Local Plan will determine how much housing, what types of housing, and where housing will be developed across the city for at least the next ten years.
Councillors Carmine Grimshaw and June Hitchen were in attendance and promised to add their pledges in support of our headline campaign ask which is for 30% of all new housing developments of 10 homes or above to be homes for social rent. You can view the full list of which councillors have pledged their support here.
You can invite Social Homes for Manchester to come and fun a film screening and workshop in your local area – just email socialhomes4mcr@gmail.com.
More Stories
Learning from East Marsh
Pride in Place Manchester
Neighbourhood Planning in Hulme
Launch of the Manchester Social Housing Commission
The Manchester Social Housing Commission held its first meeting in July bringing Community Savers leaders together with cross-sector experts to develop local and national proposals for addressing the housing crisis. The Commission is chaired by the Right Reverend Dr David Walker, Bishop of Manchester and supported by the Social Homes for Manchester campaign.
Community Savers representatives from Collyhurst, Miles Platting, and Wythenshawe advocated for 30% of all new housing developments of ten homes or more to be social rented homes that are climate and nature friendly. They also asked housing sector professionals to stop using the term ‘affordable housing’ and refer to housing for social rent or private rent. Communities often think affordable means social, and it prevents them holding developers and the council to account for building the social homes we need.
Zoe Marlow of Dandelion Savers and Women of Wythenshawe said:
“We need to stop blurring the line between social homes and affordable homes and just say which one is which. People are confused.”
The lack of information provided at a community level about developer obligations, or ‘section 106’ contributions, was also raised and Commissioners discussed the need for a review of viability assessments which developers use to avoid these obligations on grounds of low profitability.
Sue Anya of Miles Platting Community and Age-friendly Network (MPCAN) said:
“We need to know where the section 106 money goes. It doesn’t seem to get invested in the community where construction is happening…We also need to have information much earlier – we never find out what is happening until everything has already been decided.”
Families in lower income areas of the city also depend on their own family and social networks for childcare and social care support but Sheila Davis of MPCAN highlighted how children and grandchildren of existing residents are unable to find a social rental home in the same area and can’t afford escalating private rents. Flats let at “affordable rents” cost 80% of market rent but there is no cap on market rent, so these offer no solution to people working for minimum wage or even the ‘living wage’.
Sheikha Omar of Moss Side Tenants Union called for the complete banning of Section 21 evictions, the application of Freedom of Information legislation to housing associations not just local authorities, an end to the sale of social housing to private equity companies, and better controls on rent increases for both social and private tenants.
The Commission will be making policy proposals to Manchester City Council and to the new national government administration in the coming weeks and will be developing the detail of their recommendations over the next 12 months. Community representatives on the Commission will be working closely with the Social Homes for Manchester campaign coalition to organise neighbourhood-based briefing sessions across the city, raising awareness about housing and planning policy and ways to work with local councillors to secure better outcomes for their local area.
Social Homes for Manchester is a coalition of community associations, charities, think tanks, academics and social justice organisations focused on accelerating the number of social homes that are created in Manchester by 2030 and ensuring this is done in an environmentally sustainable way.
More Stories
Learning from East Marsh
Pride in Place Manchester