‘Our plan for 10,000 genuinely affordable, social and council homes is building record numbers’

More than 1,500 new homes will be built across Manchester by the council, which has promised that more than one-fifth will be ‘genuinely affordable’.

The council has struck a deal with the Greater Manchester Pension Fund to finance around 1,600 apartments and houses on brownfield parcels of land. While many of the homes will be available on the open market, at least 20 per cent will be let at the ‘Manchester Living Rent’, set at or below the local housing allowance level.

Seven projects will be built by This City, the council-owned property developer behind No 1 Ancoats Green, a 129-home scheme which opened last year. Council leader Bev Craig called that ‘a great start’, but wants to kick on with construction.

She said: “Our plan for 10,000 genuinely affordable, social and council homes is building record numbers. We built more last year than any year since the early 2000s.

“This partnership with the Greater Manchester Pension Fund will enable us to drive forward the work of This City to build the homes the city needs on council-owned land.

“Completing No.1 Ancoats Green last year was a great start – but this collaboration with the Greater Manchester Pension Fund provides long-term assurance that we can bring forward and deliver even more ambitious schemes.

“We already have a strong pipeline of projects in place, including the next This City development in the Northern Quarter, with further sites across Manchester. This means we are building many more homes capped at the Manchester Living Rent in the coming years .”

Town hall papers have named the seven sites where This City will build. They are Postal Street in the Northern Quarter (126 homes), Monsall Road in Harpurhey (651 homes), Grey Mare Lane in Beswick (145 homes), Hyde Road in Longsight (84 homes), Kirkmanshulme Lane also in Longsight (88 homes), Heyrod Street in Piccadilly (no figure given) and Downing Street in Ardwick (181 homes).

Construction work is expected to start on Postal Street next year, with other sites earmarked to begin in 2028, 2029, or 2030.

The projects are expected to be signed off by a meeting of the council’s executive at 3pm on Friday, March 13.

To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more in your community, visit the Public Notices Portal.

Vistry says it wants to create ‘well-planned new neighbourhood’

Detailed plans have been submitted for a new community of 1,491 homes and a section of trunk road at North Leigh Park.

Outline permission for up to 1,700 homes at the site was approved in 2013 but a new planning application lodged with Wigan council in the past few days gives details of the layout, appearance, landscaping and scale of the majority of the proposed development.

Two parts of the wider site have previously been developed. The first close to Nel Pan Lane where 87 homes were created on either side of the new estate road by Countryside Properties in 2021.

The second is a development of 99 homes on the northern edge of the site which is accessed from Tiverton Avenue. That phase was brought forward by Bellway Homes.

A design and access statement has been published on the council’s planning portal on behalf of developer Vistry Group.

The report said: “The vision for North Leigh Park is to deliver a sustainable, well-connected and attractive new development for Wigan.

“It will deliver part of the new strategically significant highway infrastructure required to connect junction 5 of M61 with junction 26 of the M6.”

North Leigh Park is 2.6km to the north-west of Leigh town centre. Westleigh High School to the south-east of the site.

It is to the east of the A578 (Leigh Road) and covers a huge 178-acres. The site has an industrial past used for coal mining, sand extraction quarrying, industrial waste management operations, a scrap yard and a sewage treatment.

The report added: “The application for approval relates to 68 hectares of the site. The proposed development parcels have been designed to strategically avoid highly contaminated areas.

“This approach ensures that land is redeveloped in an appropriate way to ensure the protection of future occupiers.

“It comprises the residual area of the site which remains undeveloped and includes the link road.”

That road would connect Leigh Road (A578) to Atherleigh Way (A579). The site was recently announced as one of six priority housing locations selected for the Government’s New Homes Accelerator programme, aimed at overcoming planning barriers and accelerating the delivery of new affordable homes and supporting infrastructure.

Speaking in January, Matthew Parkes, managing director, Vistry Manchester and Cheshire East, said: “We are pleased to be bringing forward the next phases of North Leigh Park and continuing to work with Wigan Council, the Government and the local community to deliver much-needed new homes in this part of the borough.

“This is a significant opportunity to prevent a complex former industrial site becoming a long-term environmental problem and instead turn it into a well-planned new neighbourhood, with new homes, green spaces, local facilities and improved connections.”

The council will decide on the plans in the coming weeks.

To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more in your community, visit the Public Notices Portal.

This comes after the stocks took a severe beating earlier last week as tensions between Iran and Israel-US escalated, with no sign of a diplomatic resolution. Supply shortages began to emerge in several cities, including Mumbai and Bengaluru, with restaurants in some areas warning of possible closures due to insufficient fuel.

Trump on Monday told CBS News that he believes the war against Iran “is very complete” and that Washington was “very far ahead” of his initial four-to-five week estimated timeframe. He also told reporters that his administration was lifting sanctions on some countries as part of efforts to stabilise the oil market.

“So we have sanctions on some countries. We’re going to take those sanctions off until the Strait is up,” he said, without providing further details.

“It’s going to end soon, and if it starts up again they’ll be hit even harder,” Trump added.

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Following the remarks, crude oil prices plunged sharply after a blistering rally that had pushed prices past the $100 mark for the first time since Russia–Ukraine War began in 2022.
India imports more than 60% of its domestic LPG needs, and around 85–90% of these imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The country consumed 31.3 million tonnes of LPG in FY25, of which only 12.8 million tonnes were produced domestically.Earlier last week, the Indian government invoked emergency powers and directed oil refiners to ensure there is no shortage of LPG for domestic customers due to supply constraints arising from rising geopolitical tensions in West Asia.

Shares of Petronet LNG jumped around 5% to trade at Rs 291.5 apiece. The stock had earlier declined more than 9% last week after the company issued force majeure notices to QatarEnergy and others because vessels were unable to safely transit through the Strait of Hormuz. The possibility of traffic resuming through the critical chokepoint appears to have boosted sentiment.

Meanwhile, shares of Gujarat Gas rose about 1.6%, GAIL (India) gained more than 2%, while Indraprastha Gas Limited was up over 1%.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by experts are their own and do not represent the views of The Economic Times.)

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