Manchester commits £47m to social housing improvements 

More than 2,000 homes across the city, including flats within 12 high-rise blocks, are due to benefit from the investment. 

Manchester City Council’s £47m capital funding package will be spent on delivering a host of improvements across the properties from 2024 to 2026. 

Work will include the installation of new bathrooms, and kitchens, as well as rewiring, fitting new doors and adapting homes for disabled residents.   

Of the near-£50m investment, £5m will be used to enhance safety across 12 high-rise blocks, including further investment in sprinkler systems and wider fire safety improvements including flat compartmentation, new fire doors, and better access routes. The city council did not disclose which blocks were up for refurbishment.  

In addition, £2m of the fund has been earmarked for essential adaptations, making sure the needs of residents with accessibility requirements are met and ensuring they can live in their homes independently for longer.   

Replacement boilers, ground or air source heat pumps, and solar panels will also be installed at some properties to improve their energy efficiency. 

The work is part of an ongoing commitment from the city council to ensure authority-owned homes meet decent homes standards and improve conditions for the city’s social housing tenants.  

Beginning in 2024, the city council’s housing services team will start to develop a five-year programme of home and estate improvements. This will be supported by a condition survey of all 12,500 city council-owned homes in the city which will help inform and prioritise any improvement works that are required.  

In July, the Manchester announced a £60m energy efficiency programme over the next two years, which will deliver upgrades to 2,100 Manchester homes as part of the city’s target to become net zero by 2038.   

“This is one of the biggest investments in council-owned homes in many years and is a clear commitment to our residents to deliver a social housing sector that our tenants can trust and homes they can be proud to live in,” said Cllr Gavin White, Manchester City Council’s executive member for housing and development. 

“We want to deliver the best possible service for social housing tenants, and we firmly believe that everyone in Manchester deserves a safe, secure and decent home.”   

He added: “Bringing the management of the social housing the council owns back in house was done to help continue with our focus on improving the management standards of our residents’ homes.  This move was also a commitment to delivering vital and further capital investment to improve the quality and standard of our homes and properties.”