What property should expect at the Greater Manchester local elections

An interesting wrinkle can be found in the Gorton and Denton election result by comparing it to recent council by-elections in Greater Manchester, writes Rob Loughenbury of Lexington.

In the autumn, we saw the Conservatives win twice in Trafford as the Labour vote fled left and right, letting the Tories squeeze through the middle. In Woodhouse Park in Manchester, we saw Greens keep the seat, despite losing a pile of votes and Reform surging. Over in Wigan, Reform romped to victory at the expense of a battered Labour Party.

So, there isn’t really much of a consistent pattern. With five national parties splitting the polls, plus a plethora of local independents, the relationship between swinging and winning becomes tenuous and patterns break down.

But one golden thread is Labour losing votes; bigly, as a famous man once said, and everywhere. Here at Lexington, we plugged the Gorton and Denton results, along with current polling, into our election model to see what could happen in May.

This is what property people should look out for in May and beyond.

Nothing happens for decades, then years happen in days

Despite Lenin’s surprisingly early assessment of contemporary English politics, you won’t rise to a revolutionary morning on 8 May.

Greater Manchester local elections happen in thirds, so even where votes move in mountains, political change is less dramatic than where all council seats are up for grabs (ask Lancastrians now, or West Yorkshire folk in May).

Labour is also defending a lot of big ward majorities, giving it a buffer before any swing in votes becomes a swing in seats.

The Gorton and Denton result, if replicated across GM, would see swathes of council seats go Green. But it won’t happen. The by-election result was driven by local demographics that play out differently across the conurbation.

Despite all this, there will be political change in May, and this will make a difference for property people doing business in GM.

No Overall Control becomes normal

The good burghers of Bolton and citizens of Stockport already know the feeling, with minority administrations commonplace in both boroughs. Oldham is also already a minority administration, and will move deeper into this territory, possibly with a change of council leadership.

Bury could shift to NOC, and a minority Labour administration, on a bad night for Labour. Wigan and Tameside could shuffle in this direction as chunky opposition emerges in the council chamber for the first time in a long time, teeing up a nervous next round in 2027.

Minority horse-trading can be stable, or chaotic. It can be good-humoured, or poisonous. But it never offers the same certainty as Overall Control. People making investment and development decisions will need to factor a fresh margin of caprice into the political assumptions underpinning their plans.

Planning committees become more divided, more political

Of course, the politics of planning can change even when control of a council does not. New councillors will pop up, and from a wider range of political parties, so you will be more likely to need cross-party support to get local consent.

Senior political support will increasingly become a necessary, but not a sufficient, route to success. It will always be a good idea to explain your plans to the right senior administration politicians. But you will also need to buy a bigger storytelling tent and speak to a more diverse audience.

Officers and politicians sizing each other up, slowing each other down

We expect lots of new councillors. In many cases, they will not have the support of experienced party colleagues to guide their early moments. Raw recruits will be armed with a strong local mandate, but also with a weaker understanding of how to get things done in local government.

There will be moments when new councillors, and new political groups, meet – at the risk of courting controversy – a reluctance amongst some officers to work with them. It shouldn’t happen, but people are real, and these things do.

At the council offices, you will meet a cast of characters old and new, all in the early stages of new working relationships. Meanwhile, you are trying to get a response to your pre-app, or to push your way onto the next committee agenda!

Things may slow down. Be ready for this.

Complications, but opportunities

Greater Manchester will not lose its attraction to investors and developers, not suddenly and hopefully not ever. But the political game is going to get increasingly complicated from here on in.

• Rob Loughenbury is the managing director of Lexington North