Mayors will be key to Burnham’s housing ambitions

Andy Burnham has placed housing and devolution at the heart of his agenda, pledging to deliver “the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period” ¹⁸ Burnham A, ‘Andy Burnham Speech at the People’s History Museum, Manchester – 29 June 2026’, June 2026, https://andyburnham.org.uk/2026/07/20/andy-burnham-speech-at-the-peoples-history-museum-manchester-29-june-2026/  and committing to giving mayors a greater role in delivering council homes, including through further devolution of the Social and Affordable Homes Programme. ¹⁹ Cabinet Office, ’Rewiring the State - Cabinet Statement’, 31 July 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rewiring-the-state-cabinet-statement/rewiring-the-state-cabinet-statement-html  

Burnham's focus on council homes signals a shift in emphasis from the previous government, whose £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme was expected to largely be allocated to housing associations rather than councils. In 2024/25, some 84% of affordable homes grant-funded by Homes England and the Greater London Authority were built by private registered providers, with fewer than 15% built by councils. ²⁰ Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, ‘Live tables on housing supply: Table 1000: additional affordable homes provided by type of scheme, England’, June 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply  

Burnham’s pledge is bold: at the peak of the post-war period he refers to councils built over 50 times as many homes each year as they did in 2024. ²⁴ Office for National Statistics, ‘Indicators of housebuilding, UK: permanent dwellings started and completed by country’, 22 April 2026, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/datasets/ukhousebuildingpermanentdwellingsstartedandcompleted  This raises big questions for the new administration, not least how local government can build the capacity to deliver new council homes so quickly. 

In 2024/25, councils built fewer than 2% of new homes in England, ²⁵ Office for National Statistics, ‘Indicators of housebuilding, UK: permanent dwellings started and completed by country’, 22 April 2026, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/datasets/ukhousebuildingpermanentdwellingsstartedandcompleted  while almost half of councils owned no social housing stock. ²⁶ Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, ‘Local Authority Housing Statistics: Technical notes 2024-25’, 12 February 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/local-authority-housing-statistics-technical-notes-2024-to-2025/local-authority-housing-statistics-technical…  Rebuilding the skills and organisational capacity needed to scale up delivery will be a major test for the new government, particularly given ongoing fiscal pressures and workforce shortages.

Regardless of who builds new affordable homes, regional mayors will be key to delivering Burnham’s housing ambitions. With powers over land acquisition, regeneration, spatial planning and brownfield funding, mayors are playing an increasingly important role in housing. 

The latest briefing from the IfG DevoLab explores how mayors are using these powers to increase the supply of affordable homes and the lessons which can be learned to accelerate delivery.

New housing plans should be embedded within a shared regional vision

Mayors should set a clear regional vision that brings partners around together shared goals, including housing. Agreed by mayors and local leaders, regional strategies provide a framework for decision making across transport, growth and housing. The Greater Manchester Strategy, for example, sets out an ambition to build 10,000 “truly affordable net zero homes” by 2030. This collective vision helps to shape the policies, partnerships and investment decisions needed to deliver affordable homes while supporting wider regional objectives.

Spatial development strategies, which are statutory regional planning documents, will be key to delivering this vision. New legislation requires all mayors to produce one and simplifies their adoption, providing an important opportunity for mayors to align housing, growth, infrastructure and environmental plans. At our DevoLab event in Manchester, we heard that this improved coordination could help accelerate affordable housing delivery.

Sequenced and targeted public sector investment can ease viability pressures and align partners around shared priorities

Viability pressures including high borrowing costs, skills shortages and weaker buyer demand continue to constrain housing delivery. Delivering affordable homes which are joined up with transport, growth and employment opportunities also requires significant investment and careful coordination of funding and partners.

Mayoral strategic authorities can ease some of these pressures by providing a clear, sequenced investment pipeline that aligns funding, partners and delivery capacity. Greater Manchester’s ‘integrated pipeline’, for example, maps transport, housing, innovation and low-carbon infrastructure projects around six key growth locations. ²⁸ Mapping GM, ’Integrated pipeline’, May 2025, https://mappinggm.org.uk/about/integrated-pipeline/

Targeted infrastructure investment can also unlock stalled sites and attract private capital. In the West Midlands, plans to extend the metro to East Birmingham are expected to catalyse up to £3bn of investment in the Birmingham Sports Quarter, including 1,500 new homes. In the West of England, the combined authority has forward-funded a new station entrance to support the Bristol Temple Quarter development, which could deliver up to 10,000 homes.

Building affordable homes requires system-wide collaboration so mayors must lead effective partnerships

Affordable housing is delivered through a complex ecosystem of councils, developers, investors, housing associations, strategic authorities and central government. As Andrew McIntosh, Director of Place at GMCA, noted at our Manchester DevoLab event, mayoral strategic authorities “don’t go out and put a spade in the ground” themselves, they rely on partners across the system to deliver their ambitions.

Success therefore depends on mayors convening and leading effective partnerships. Relationships with councils are especially important – they hold planning powers, have statutory housing responsibilities and, under Burnham’s plans, will be key delivery partners in a renewed programme of council housebuilding.

Strong partnerships with central government are equally vital. Ten mayoral strategic authorities now have Strategic Place Partnerships with Homes England, providing a shared framework for housing growth, coordinating delivery pipelines and enabling funding to be deployed more flexibly to unlock stalled sites. Burnham’s commitment to further devolution of the Social and Affordable Homes Programme also suggests some reallocation of funding from Homes England to mayors, but it is not yet clear what this will look like in practice.

With Burnham making devolution the central pillar of his vision for “good growth in every postcode” and promising a new generation of council housing, regional mayors will be crucial to turning national ambitions into homes on the ground. To succeed, they will need to draw not only their powers and funding, but also the institutional capacity to coordinate delivery, build strong partnerships and develop a shared vision for regional growth.