Wigan moves to oppose Tritax’s 8.2m sq ft rail freight terminal

Labour’s Dan Price and Conservative’s Ben Fletcher agree on one thing: building homes must be a priority for the future leader of the sub-region. How they approach the issue, however, is different.

Officers recommend that the council’s executive approve the hand-back of the office-led Sale Waterside complex, delivered under a private finance initiative contract agreed in 2002.

After years of legal battles fighting the adoption of an unpopular strategic planning framework, the local authority said it was determined to learn lessons from the past to create a document that the community and county councillors can support.

The council has been without a primary political figure since May 2026. With no end in sight to the current stalemate, the local authority has outlined how best to move forward.

Unable to avoid Green Belt release, the latest version of the spatial development framework for the borough looks to enable the delivery of 24, 253 homes – well short of the 32,317 identified as its overall housing need.

Mayor of Greater Manchester Bev Craig has thrown her support behind efforts to use Middleton as a test bed for delivering the kind of regeneration that prioritises benefits for existing residents.

May 2027 elections will use existing council boundaries, with secretary of state Angela Rayner putting the local authority overhaul on ice pending a legal review.

In her first major address to the property industry as Greater Manchester Mayor, Bev Craig said she would “double down” on partnerships with the private sector to deliver economic growth for the city region.

Victoria North in Manchester and Leeds South Bank will have to wait a few more months to find out if they have made the cut for the programme, which aims to deliver a series of new settlements and urban extensions, each with between 15,000 and 40,000 homes.

Cllr Garry Bridges has been elected as the new leader of the city’s Labour Group and will formally take up the city council’s top job tomorrow.

Housing association chief executives have welcomed £9bn of allocations from the government’s Social and Affordable Homes Programme, saying the funding would help tackle housing waiting lists across England.

Councillors were unable, for a fifth time, to appoint a Leader during Thursday’s meeting. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government has commenced an oversight process that could end with commissioners being brought in to run the politically volatile local authority.

“Cheshire East is finally facing up to the consequences of decisions deferred, problems ignored, and opportunities missed over more than a decade,” wrote the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy in its review of the council’s books.

With the structural budget gap due to grow from £44.9m in 2026-27 to £118.6m in 2030-31, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s review of the council’s books paints a picture of a local authority struggling to agree a path forward.

The three North West local authorities will now have to treat residential planning applications with a presumption in favour of approval, formulate an action plan to stimulate residential delivery, and add a 20% buffer to their housing land supply.

PLP’s controversial Astley Park industrial scheme in Wigan necessitates changes to the planning system, according to Greater Manchester Mayor Bev Craig.

A Greater Manchester public sector land bank will enable Mayor Bev Craig to make a sizeable dent in her overall goal to see 50,000 council and social homes built by 2039 – with a fifth due to be constructed, on site, or through planning within two years.

Armed with the soon-to-be-launched £20m Good Growth High Streets Fund, the collective will help drive Greater Manchester’s approach to revitalising town and city centres.

The former Leader of Manchester City Council must now make good on her promise to restore pride in the city region’s high streets, following a campaign that aimed to convince voters she would speak up for residents across GM’s 10 boroughs.