The ten councils in Greater Manchester are consulting the public on plans to work together to support significant levels of housing and employment growth.
Leaders of the ten GM authorities have agreed that increasingly they think and act as a single economic entity, with a single labour market and interdependent towns and cities, transport, culture, education and public services. They also believe they have a role as a regional capital, providing employment for those living far beyond the boundaries of the 10.
A statutory joint Development Plan ..
Since January 2014, research by planning and housing experts has already identified the scale and type of growth that the councils believe they should be planning for and recognise the need to work together to produce a statutory joint Development Plan Document to manage the supply of land in Greater Manchester over the next 20 years.
This will give Greater Manchester an overarching plan within which the 10 local authorities identify and make available land to deliver ambitious strategic priorities.
The multi-council plan is believed to be the first of its type in the country and will link appropriately to the 10 councils’ own local plans.
Council leaders have now agreed there will be a public consultation scheduled to start Friday September 26 on the evidence base that has been gathered so far .
GM lead Chief Executive on planning and housing and CE of Stockport Council Eamonn Boylan said:
“We need to use this evidence to underpin a strategic discussion in Greater Manchester on how we manage our land supply to meet our aspirations for housing and employment growth .
“We need to go beyond the numbers game to discuss the sort of housing we need, and how that housing will help Greater Manchester keep and attract the skilled people we will need and the businesses which will provide future jobs.”
The consultation will test the evidence base that has been developed so far and help to guide the next steps of the proposed statutory joint Development Plan Document for Greater Manchester.
Said Mr Boylan:
“This is a radical step and reflects our ambition for Greater Manchester to manage the challenge of growth across all 10 authorities in a coherent way. Our work is underpinned by a shared ambition to increase the prosperity of the people of Greater Manchester.
“Our regional centre provides employment for those living far beyond our boundaries, and the challenge and opportunity is to achieve the benefits of a larger market that greater connectivity can bring.”
Councillor Patrick McAuley, Stockport Council’s Executive Member for Economic Development and Regeneration, said:
“With more devolution of power to Greater Manchester looking likely, the importance of leading the debate on Housing and Employment growth is key to Stockport’s future as a top residential and business centre. Stockport Council see’s the collective approach being taken as essential to delivering the best deal for our residents as well as across Greater Manchester as a whole.”
The consultation will run for six weeks at www.agma.gov.uk and more details can be found at Greater Manchester Spatial Framework
Over the following 12 months, options will be developed for the draft DPD and with full consultation planned in 2016, before publication in 2017.
Management Agency to be set up …
Leaders have also recently agreed to establish a Greater Manchester housing delivery agency to deal with management of public sector land and negotiation with Government over future funding.
This agency will seek to support individual authorities in delivering key priorities and may, over time, become a developer of homes in its own right.
The new plan will ensure that Greater Manchester has the supply of land to meet these ambitious targets for growth over the long term.