Wed 2 Sep 2020, 05:09 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot Labour member
A new four-part series on BBC2, Manctopia, gives an account of the redevelopment of Manchester’s City Centre. The programme follows the lives of those who are benefiting and those who are losing out in the Property Boom. According to the narrator, the landscape of Manchester has undergone a transformation. Twenty years ago, it had a relatively small city centre. Now, one contributor describes it, like New York, as a city that never sleeps. Another resident described the centre as ‘Starbucks Central’ saying that few Mancunians can afford to live in city centre.
In 2014, George Osborne, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that resources would be given to areas of the north and dubbed it the ‘Northern Powerhouse’. During the 2019 election, Boris Johnson claimed that he would ‘level up’ northern towns and cities, but if the experience of London and Manchester are anything to go by, it won’t be the majority of local people who will benefit.
Like inner London, central Manchester is undergoing a gentrification, but whereas the return on property investment in Kensington is under 3%, in Manchester it is over 8%. As in London, most of the development is unaffordable for working people. Only 20 % of new-builds are classified as “affordable”, although in fact they’re not.
The programme interviewed a mother of two young children who rented a three-bedroomed semi for over five years at a cost of £670 a month. She was served with a section-21 (no fault eviction) notice and was required to leave with only two weeks’ notice. In her area, Salford, rents have increased by 40% and locals like her are being priced out. To get social housing, you have to bid on-line for available properties and failure to do so could result in being moved outside the area. Points are given to those who have registered for bidding longest and social need. Although this person was top of list for social need she still failed to get suitable accommodation. According to the programme 97,000 are currently on the housing waiting list in the Salford area.
There are around 250 people living on the streets in Manchester, a rise of 50% in a year. Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester introduced a scheme called a ‘bed for every night’ but due it has to be funded by charity. The person appointed by Burnham to head the charity is actually a property developer who began by buying homes, doing them up and selling for a profit. He still does the same now, but on a grander scale, with assets worth around a billion pound. Victorian values are still alive and well in 21st century Britain!
Osbourne, Johnson and the rest of the Tory crew, (and not a few on the right of the Labour Party) believe that it is the ‘market’ that solves everything, but it will never solve Britain’s housing crises. We need a return to a mass council-house building programme, to solve the problem of affordable homes for all.
