Sir Richard Leese says ‘we are open to working with anybody’ – we asked campaign groups what they thought (pt.4)

In response to a recent blog post by Sir Richard Leese, we’ve been asking local groups to share their experiences of working with Manchester City Council. Sir Richard Leese says the council are open to working with any parties interested in environmental and development issues. This is the fourth article in a Meteor series called […]

Greater Manchester plan for jobs, homes…and the environment?

After several delays the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has published the new draft of its Spatial Framework. The previous version, published in late 2016 met considerable criticism, especially from groups campaigning on green space but also from other quarters, including our own critique of its assumptions of accelerated “economic growth”. On the other side the […]

Is Burnham’s A Bed Every Night scheme enough? 

On the first day in his role as mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Andy Burnham pledged 15% of his £110,00 salary (£16,500) to his newly created Mayor’s homelessness fund. He had soared to victory in the election with 63% of the vote on the back of a pledge to end rough sleeping in Greater […]

Can alternative models of ownership alleviate the housing crisis?

The housing crisis is a prime example of the economic term market failure. Politicians of different stripes have followed policies, introduced by Margaret Thatcher, of increasing market forces in the housing market, by promoting private ownership of homes, and degrading social housing by selling it off with heavy subsidies – while promising but failing to […]

Greater Manchester’s social and solidarity economy revealed

Transform GM – an action research project looking to understand, map and promote ‘alternative’ economic activity in Greater Manchester (GM) –  have just launched a new website mapping the social and solidarity economy (SSE). The SSE is made up of initiatives which prioritise other values over the economic bottom line and, unlike many charities, are […]