A report that sets out the opportunity to create a new housing development and management company to accelerate affordable homes building will be heard by the Council’s executive committee.

The proposal follows an executive report in September 2019 that confirmed the Council’s commitment to deliver at least 6,400 affordable homes between 2015 and 2025 – 20pc of the overall housing delivery target of 32,000 homes during this period.

Key to meeting this target is to use Council-owned land and work in partnership with the city’s Registered Providers, who in turn can access funding to build new homes.

In addition to working with RPs, creating a local housing development and management company will mean the Council can develop affordable homes directly, which will help deliver new homes more quickly for Manchester people.

Current estimates suggest a Council-managed development company could deliver around 1,800 new affordable homes, along with more than 1,000 homes for market sale and rent.

A report will be submitted to a future meeting of the executive that will detail the approach to the housing delivery company.

Cllr Suzanne Richards, Manchester City Council’s executive member for housing and regeneration, said: “Creating our own housing development company means we can take a far more proactive role in affordable housing delivery across the city, using our own land to direct-build the homes that Manchester people need.

“We will continue to work closely with our Registered Social Landlords to deliver new homes across the city, but it’s important that we consider every option open to us to ensure new affordable homes are built as quickly as possible.

“The intention is that this will help us not only meet, but exceed our target of 6,400 new affordable homes up to 2025, and this model means we can ensure high sustainability performance to help us on our journey to become a zero carbon city by 2038.”