Manchester unveils next This City scheme
Around 100 apartments on Postal Street in the city’s Northern Quarter will be the next tranche of homes developed by the council’s newly formed housing delivery vehicle.
This City’s second project, which follows news of plans for 128 homes on Rodney Street in Ancoats, will be built on a site on Postal Street currently occupied by a warehouse.
HawkinsBrown has been appointed to design the scheme and Faithful + Gould is the project manager.
This City is to deliver “a minimum of 100 low-carbon city centre apartments” on Postal Street, according to Manchester City Council.
Around 20% of the homes will be available for accessible rent. This means they will be priced at or below the Local Housing Allowance level and therefore be accessible to residents on housing benefit.
A consultation will open in the summer to gather public views on the proposals for the Postal Street site ahead of the submission of a planning application later this year.
“Our ambition is that This City will scale up home delivery as quickly as possible to 500 homes a year,” said Cllr Bev Craig, leader of the Manchester City Council.
“Our aim is to directly build the homes we know Manchester people need, helping to meet the demand for high-quality affordable homes, and This City will play an important role in building the many new social and accessible rent homes we need.”
This City was formed earlier this year with the aim of boosting the city council’s housing delivery output.
Manchester is on track to build more than 7,000 affordable homes by 2025, exceeding the previous target of 6,400 new affordable homes between 2015 and 2025, according to the city council.
So, housing benefit homes in the city centre?
Let’s go back to the dark days of the 1970s.
By JohnnySchofield
I think JohnnySchofield needs to understand that living in the city is for everyone, not just the rich.
By Andrew
This is not the place for housing benefit homes.
By Anonymous
Backwards step
By Dan
Hopefully they will do an affordability reassessment and the 20% allocation will be removed.
By Anonymous
@JohnnySchofield god forbid our cities are populated by people from varied socioeconomic backgrounds.
By Preston
The comments make me laugh. There are over 500k local authority / housing association homes in london with a lot in central areas.
Ultimately the housing given its location will come with tenants who have spent a long time on waiting lists who wouldn’t wish to lose it with anti-social behaviour. Affordable housing is central to any functioning city.
Money doesn’t always come with class and behaviour
By Tomo
Great to read!
By Byronic
Affordable homes right in the middle of the city centre, are we time-travelling back 50 years? Not the time or place for these? City fringes are where affordable homes should be.
By New Wave
The comments on here are startling. I can’t imagine feeling threatened by the provision of 20 affordable flats in an area which has probably seen thousands of market rate flats appear over the last 20 years.
Unless there’s something about the residents of these affordable homes that some of you want to get off your chest?
By Anonymous
A big step forward. This has really upset the bourgeoise
By RM
Affordable homes? What does that mean? There are people on decent salaries, unable to afford Central Manchester. Why not homes for hardworking people on moderate incomes too? Why should someone who doesn’t work get a flat in Ancoats and someone who does, have to commute from Swinton.
By Elephant
“City fringes are where affordable homes should be.” Absolutely. Where else would you want butlers, coachmen and scullery maids to live? There’s plenty of space there for allotments, pigeon lofts, and, in the south west, lots of large chimneys for Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweeps to clean. Gawd bless ya guv’nor.
By Bert
The bourgeoisie!…haven’t heard that term since the 1970s….and we don’t want to go back there! Mind you with inflation heading upwards and fuel prices doing likewise there are parallels and it may be time to break out the flares again . Vesta curry anyone?
By Alfie Smith
@Preston, what does that mean?
By Cal
How could this upset the bourgeoise? It’s literally the opposite.
By Dan
Why don’t they simple build them to the PassivHaus principles and enable those living there the to take advantage of 80% lower heating costs rather than state ‘low-carbon’?
By Philip Smith-Lawrence
Some people need to have a word with themselves here. When did we decide Manchester city centre was a middle class enclave. Many parts of London have very mixed communities and thrive. This feels like a very modest proposal.
By Rich X
Until they start really upping the ante with designs, affordable housing should be top priority anyway.
By Anonymous
What about affordable housing for people who are working and can’t afford to live in the city centre ?
By Anonymous
@Philip Smith-Lawrence “Why don’t they simple build them to the PassivHaus principles and enable those living there the to take advantage of 80% lower heating costs rather than state ‘low-carbon’?” Exactly this! I read Hawkins Brown did this on a London estate recently, tackling fuel poverty, and you’d hope MCC / This City have the ambition to set this as part of the brief here and on future developments.
By Steeze
This is nothing more than a shiny thing to distract the easily distracted from the reality that this is a grain of sand when it comes to ‘affordable’ housing . The real story is out in the suburbs where a long term multi agency approach involving both public and private sector is needed to build at scale. This may happen shortly after the pigs begin take off. But that’s just my long learned cynicism. On the positive side the new and upcoming Victoria North District seems like an exciting opportunity. I await with wide eyed shiny faced optimism.
By Tad short