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Andy Burnham said the money will help fund solutions to the 'root causes' of issues facing the city region. Credit: PNW

Greater Manchester to get £630m devo cash from Whitehall

Mayor Andy Burnham described the integrated settlement, which will be paid in the next financial year, as “the biggest step yet” on the city region’s devolution journey.

That Greater Manchester would receive an integrated settlement as part of its trailblazer devolution deal has been known for some time. Today’s announcement from deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is the first time GM bosses have learned how much they will get.

While Greater Manchester will get £630m in 2025/26, and the West Midlands Combined Authority will get £388m.

The cash will be handed to the city regions’ combined authorities as a single lump sum. This means that they will no longer have to bid for funding from separate pots and can choose to spend the money how they see fit.

The settlements consolidate funding across more than 20 different streams covering housing, regeneration, local growth, local transport, adult skills, retrofit, and employment support.

“With more freedom and flexibility, we can be even smarter about funding local services,” Burnham said.

“We can take a preventative approach, getting to the root causes of the issues facing our communities and delivering more practical everyday support.”

News of the amount GM will receive comes just days after the combined authority announced a £10bn pipeline of projects aimed at growing the economies of each of the city region’s 10 boroughs.

“We’ve set out an ambitious long-term vision to deliver thousands of new homes and jobs at a pace and scale not seen in the past 20 years. This game-changing integrated settlement will be the key to unlocking that growth for generations to come.”

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A lot of money but a lot of areas to cover

By Anonymous

Keep going Andy, doing a great job despite what some of the moaners say. He’s nailed on to run the country one day but hopefully we have him for a long time before then.

By Bob

And how much will Trafford and Stockport get?

By Anonymous

Please reinstate the bus service for Seymour Grove up to Trafford Bar. There are two housing associations and several hundred houses that have no way of getting to white City shopping unless we pensioners get taxi’s. The distance is 3 junctions away. Now we have no Chorlton Precinct we have very limited shops in the area. Help us out PLEASE.

By Ms Lo Monroe

Good, but in reality a drop in the ocean..just a bigger drop than most will get.

By Anonymous

How long will it take them to burn through that without delivering one single benefit to the people?

By Anonymous

Hardly life-changing for 3 million people. How come we got twice as much as the West Midlands? With a similar population. Please spend it on cleaning up the filthy doughnut ring. I was in Moston last week, and it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned this century.

By Elephant

The trouble with dishing it out this way, is that Burnham controls it all and can decide on how it is spent. Previously the money would have been allocated specifically to certain priorities i.e. Broadband, Flood Defences, Carbon neutral projects, transport projects, SME help and couldn’t be given elsewhere. Now its open to to all unsundry and will not be given out fairly like before

By Anonymous

How much is Liverpool City Region getting?

By Anonymous

Anonymous @1.50pm couple of thoughts. Whatever the allocation was when it was decided in Whitehall just reflects a different set of political trade-offs between central government departments, it’s not clear to me its more objective or fair, and certainly doesn’t rely on any strong local knowledge of GM. Also the constitution of the GMCA makes Burnham one of 11 cabinet members, so the best way to thing about that is a political trade-off at GM level not Whitehall.

If I was in other combined authorities I might be a bit twitchy, but you can see just this week that GM has well thought plans for things like transport and housing, and seems to be able get favourable attention from the Chancellor because it has some of the better ideas and a track record of getting stuff done, but hey, we’ll find out.

By Rich X

Nice I’m sure but how much will Merseyside get and when?

By Anonymous

This is a step in the right direction and has been a long time coming.
Grand projects have their place however basic, decent services and roads are the mainstay.
None of this should go on facilitating the refurb /rebuild of a football ground for a badly run club. Good public services, day in and day out for the majority is the priority.

By Optimistic Pragmatist

Excellent news. The way funding was previously dished out was disjointed, time consuming and wasteful. Having one fund controlled locally will be more focused and efficient.

By Anonymous

I am not a Labour supporter at national level but a firm supporter of Burnham for the Greater Manchester cause. No one has realistically been that person in my lifetime

By Good news!

How does this compare to the separate pots that have now been merged – my understanding was that there would be no new money here. LCR’s kicks in from next year so will be interesting to see whether they are given the same deal.

By Deal or nae deal

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