Over the past decade, the city region has become the fastest growing part of the UK economy, driven by a high-performing centre unrecognisable from even 15 years ago.
Our trailblazing devolution deals and unique partnership approach have fuelled annual growth of 3.1 per cent – more than double the rate of the country as a whole. A recent report from Oxford Economics praised Greater Manchester’s growth journey, calling us a “trailblazer for local devolution.”
Analysis shows that, if we can lock in the same kind of growth for the next decade, the Greater Manchester economy will be more than a third bigger than it is today – giving a further £38bn boost to the national finances.
But this growth will only be a success if it’s felt in every part of our city region, guaranteeing that everyone has the foundations of a good life so they can thrive.
Now we have a plan to deliver a new decade of good growth – through a UK-first Integrated Pipeline of high-impact housing, employment, and regeneration projects and a £1 billion GM Good Growth Fund to pump-prime building at a pace and scale not seen before this century.
In a landmark speech in Stockport today (Thursday 20 November) for the Good Growth Foundation, Mayor Andy Burnham will unveil plans to allocate £400 million to a first wave of projects, set to deliver nearly 3,000 homes, more than 22,000 jobs, and 2 million square feet of employment space.
That initial investment is set to unlock a further £1.3 billion in private capital, helping get new development off the ground, creating new opportunities for everyone across Greater Manchester, and cementing this as the best place to invest in the UK.
The first wave of funding will:
- Revitalise our town centres with new, vibrant neighbourhoods and reinvented community assets, like Oldham’s flagship Prince’s Gate development and Wigan’s Cotton Works.
- Help us turn the tide on the housing crisis by building well-connected new homes, investing in schemes like Victoria North, one of the Government’s first New Towns, and Salford’s Adelphi Village, to deliver the affordable, sustainable housing we need.
- Grow our central core and innovation district, backing transformative projects like Mayfield, Sister, and the redevelopment of the former Kendals department store, while also investing in new lab space, so we can nurture high-growth, high-productivity sectors like advanced materials and manufacturing life sciences, digital, low carbon and green technology.
- Deliver for our communities with our joint development plan Places for Everyone mapping out shovel-ready sites while protecting nature, and our Integrated Pipeline sequencing development to create thriving, low-carbon communities, connected by our green, safe and affordable Bee Network.
Alongside this, we’ll build momentum through our Mayoral Development Corporations, replicating the success seen in Stockport and driving the Old Trafford Regeneration scheme – the UK’s biggest sports-led regeneration project since London 2012.
With our devolved powers we’ve created a £1 billion ‘GM Good Growth Fund’ to turbocharge regeneration, with the potential to create around 12,000 jobs in construction alone, with another 10,134 jobs at the new employment sites our Integrated Pipeline builds.
By providing just enough finance to make projects viable, we aim to unlock billions of pounds in private and public capital over the next decade.
The city region’s leaders are expected to approve this first wave of funding allocations at next Friday’s meeting of Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). The second wave of project funding will be announced in March.
Greater Manchester has already used unique tools like Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) to spearhead regeneration around the city region. Last night, the Mayor met with actor and writer Steve Coogan and the Chief Executive of Co-operatives UK, Rose Marley, who will co-chair a new MDC for Middleton, working with Rochdale Council to help the town grow and thrive.
And last week, the Mayor broke ground on the North West’s largest development site, Atom Valley, where a Mayoral Development Zone is driving forward work to create a unique Advanced Manufacturing and Materials innovation cluster with the potential to create a further 20,000 new jobs in Greater Manchester.
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said:
“Greater Manchester is the UK’s economic success story of the past decade.
“Powered by devolution, our journey of growth has transformed our city region and is opening up opportunities that people could not have imagined 30 years ago.
“But we know that the real test of good growth is whether every person and every place feels the benefits.
“We’ve never believed in a busted ‘trickle-down’ theory that puts the pursuit of pure economic growth above the basic needs of our communities.
“And growth in Greater Manchester has never been an end in itself – it’s a means of improving lives by creating new opportunities and broadening access to them.
“We know we will only change the fortunes of our people and places by getting on with fixing the things national politics has neglected.
“That’s why we’ve used our trailblazing devolution deals to put public services back in service of the public, becoming the first region in 40 years to bring buses under local control.
“And it’s why Greater Manchester is ready to pioneer a new model for economic growth – unlocking investment to build new homes, create good jobs, deliver infrastructure, and providing the everyday support that will enable everyone to live a good life.
“Good growth is the defining challenge of our age – and today we are setting out a serious, practical plan to achieve it.”
Greater Manchester’s Integrated Pipeline will help unlock the full potential of all our communities and businesses, sequencing and coordinating development and targeting funding at the projects that will deliver the maximum opportunities for good growth.
Catalysed by our GM Good Growth Fund, the pipeline will speed up development and enable us to build the new and affordable homes we need to solve the housing crisis, revive our town centres, build new innovation and employment sites, create high-quality jobs, and install the energy and transport infrastructure to power and connect it all.
The £1 billion Good Growth Fund brings together different pots of funding, including an initial £300 million invested by the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF).
A new strategic partnership between GMCA and GMPF – the first of its kind in the country – will prioritise local investment and align the GMPF’s investment to our Integrated Pipeline. Projects in the Integrated Pipeline will be able to access patient capital that aims for sustainable growth and long-term impact.
We’ll invest in a way that makes the most of every pound, delivering social as well as economic benefits.
For example, we’ll procure in a way that strengthens local supply chains, and we’ll work with development partners to create new apprenticeships and T-Level placement opportunities for our young people, while ensuring the jobs our pipeline creates meet the standards set out in our Good Employment Charter.
We’ll recycle loans from the GM Good Growth Fund, reinvesting the capital and interest once the monies have been repaid to kickstart other projects.
We’ll also plough back into our Integrated Pipeline the extra revenue generated by our investments. For example, building new homes and employment sites will generate extra council tax and business rate revenue, which we’ll invest in our communities.
Cllr Bev Craig, Leader of Manchester City Council and Greater Manchester lead for Economy, Business, and Inclusive Growth said:
“Our game-changing GM Good Growth Fund will rewire how investment transforms local areas and people’s lives. We know that the past decade has been transformational for Greater Manchester. We’ve attracted record investment, and creating the right environment for businesses to grow, creating jobs and opportunities for our residents, not only becoming the UK’s fastest growing economy but turning the tide on decades of decline.
“Our track record is something to be proud of, but behind the headlines our mission for growth is clear- it has to be with purpose, inclusive and create real opportunities. Too often trickle-down growth isn’t something people can feel in their everyday lives or see in their local communities, and we want to change that.
“Our Good Growth Fund will drive the investment that will deliver thousands of new homes that people can afford, breathe new life into our town centres, create tens of thousands of jobs and ensure our city centre remains one of the most important engines of growth anywhere in the UK. It recognizes that we all benefit when everywhere thrives.
“Most importantly, we’re lining up our plans so that this development is complemented by the expansion of our Bee Network, businesses get the support they need to thrive, and people can access high-quality jobs in growing parts of our economy.
“Good, inclusive growth means spreading the benefits of growth to all our people and all our boroughs.”
Alongside our plan to drive investment, we’re creating the conditions for all residents to live well, breaking down the barriers holding back people across the city region, so that everyone can make the most of the opportunities that come from good growth.
Our Greater Manchester Baccalaureate is transforming technical education, giving young people a clear line of sight to high quality jobs in our growing economy, and we’re helping residents to live healthier, happier lives and access new employment and training opportunities through our Live Well approach.
Underpinning all this is the Bee Network – our safe, green and affordable public transport system, which is seamlessly connecting people and places like never before. Next year the first of eight rail lines will be brought into the network, which already includes bus, rail, tram, and active travel routes.
Public control over our transport system means we can make sure new housing and employment districts are connected to existing places and communities. And we can keep fares low and offer free or discounted travel to the groups that most need it, so everyone can access jobs, education and leisure opportunities.
But to keep growing we need major investment in rail and road infrastructure. Like Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region has used devolution to achieve a rate of economic growth above the UK average. This is despite having unreliable rail services which cause harm to our local economies.
Transformational plans for a new Liverpool-Manchester Railway could unlock the full potential of a Northern Arc, connecting Greater Manchester’s growth locations with other major cities and Investment Zones across the North of England and Wales. Growth along the Liverpool-Manchester corridor alone, which currently drives £150 billion in annual economic output, could boost the national economy by £90 billion by 2040.
Paul Dennett, City Mayor of Salford and Greater Manchester Lead for Housing, Homelessness and Infrastructure, said:
“From raising standards through the UK’s first Good Landlord Charter, to delivering new genuinely affordable and beautiful net zero homes for our residents, to tackling the urgent and unsustainable temporary accommodation crisis – housing is the cornerstone of a healthy, happy life, and must be at the heart of any serious plan to improve people’s lives and deliver good growth.
“This first £400 million wave from our Good Growth Fund will fuel that effort: delivering transformative regeneration schemes across Greater Manchester, investing to unlock private capital, and helping us build thousands of new homes of the types and tenures we need – including genuinely affordable and social rent homes – so we can turn the tide on the housing crisis and the chaos it has wrought across the country. We’ve already shown the power of that joined-up approach, by recycling interest from investment funds that built thousands of homes to train housing enforcement officers driving up standards across the city region.
“Our Good Growth Fund is about fundamentally rewiring the way that Greater Manchester works together and using our pioneering devolved powers to answer the tough questions that national government can’t. That means making sure everyone in every town and city feels those benefits, whether it’s building good quality homes in well-connected neighbourhoods, giving people the practical support to get back into work, rejuvenating town centres with new high-quality development, or creating good jobs in the growth sectors of the future.”
To ensure we have the right people to deliver our pipeline projects, we’ve launched a new Regeneration Skills Academy. It will create opportunities for local people to develop the skills needed to deliver our pipeline projects, and it will help us attract and retain the best talent, making Greater Manchester a centre of expertise and innovation.
We’ve also created a Developers’ Forum to help public and private sector partners work together effectively and deliver new housing and employment sites efficiently.
And now, Greater Manchester is also getting ready to pioneer a radical approach to tackling the housing crisis. Starting next year, we’ll recruit housing experts to hunt down the thousands of empty properties across the city region and give councils more control over what happens to them – so we can house families in need and take the pressure out of ballooning public bills for temporary accommodation.
Cllr David Molyneux, Leader of Wigan Council and Greater Manchester Lead for Investment, said:
“We’ve used our devolved powers to pioneer a new way of attracting game-changing investment in our communities. By providing just enough public funding to make key projects viable, our GM Good Growth Fund will unlock billions of pounds of other investment and drive good growth right across our city region.
“Our approach builds on decades of successful public private partnership and our strong track record in driving growth, which has seen us bucking national trends and made us a top destination for private investors. With the right support from central Government and public finance institutions, we can kickstart a new decade of truly inclusive growth for all our people and all our places.
“And because of the way we invest – using social value models to squeeze the maximum benefit out of every public pound – we can deliver massive regeneration in a way that strengthens local supply chains and brings big benefits to communities.”
Cllr Eleanor Wills, Chair of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund and Executive Leader of Administering Authority (Tameside) said:
“The Greater Manchester Pension Fund is backing the city region’s plans for growth with significant investment.
“A new strategic partnership will see our Local Government Pension Scheme work closely with Greater Manchester Combined Authority to prioritise local investment and local impact.
“Greater Manchester is leading the way once again, becoming the first place in the country to pioneer this approach.
“Projects in our Integrated Pipeline will be able to access the long-term, patient capital that pension funds can offer, while members will see their contributions support the prosperity and growth of their communities, just as they did through their working lives.”
The Greater Manchester Strategy provides more detail about our plans to deliver a decade of good growth. Launched in July, it sets out our shared vision for a thriving city region where everyone can live a good life.
At the heart of that vision are a Growth Plan and a People Plan to ensure that every person and every place in Greater Manchester can contribute to and benefit from economic growth.
