New homes on the green belt are needed to tackle the housing crisis in Salford , Mayor Paul Dennett has said.
He said the city cannot rely on building high rise flats in the centre, which are “unaffordable” for many residents.
The Mayor called on the new Labour government to “properly fund” councils so they can build more family homes to meet the demand for affordable housing.
In January, Mr Dennett said Salford had entered a housing and homelessness “crisis” due to rising numbers of people facing life on the streets.
A recent council report revealed there were around 3,000 cases of people facing homelessness last year, up from around 1,000 two years earlier.
Salford council has announced a number of measures to tackle the issue, including building 600 new council houses over the next four years of Mr Dennett’s mayoral term.
The scheme was shared in the council’s new corporate plan – described by Mr Dennett as a “plan for socialism.”
It aims to create a ‘fairer, greener, healthier and more inclusive’ Salford by 2028.
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The Salford City Mayor said:
“We can’t keep delivering high rise flats in the urban core. When you look at people’s income, these are by and large unaffordable.
“We need to build family homes, we need more truly affordable housing, and that requires central government to step up to the plate and properly fund local authorities to enable that to happen.
“We can’t do that on our own, we haven’t got enough money.
“Building homes is how we tackle the housing and homelessness crisis, we’ve been through a long process around the spatial plan, and we’ve had to land on some site allocations.
“There’s no way we will be able to meet housing need unless we release some green space.”
Salford council was the first in Greater Manchester to adopt the region-wide Places for Everyone Scheme – a plan to build 165,000 new homes and attract new investment.
This includes releasing green belt land around Greater Manchester for development.
But residents living in the semi-rural areas of the borough of Salford have expressed concerns over the number of homes being built.
In Boothstown, locals recently told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the infrastructure is not there to accommodate a large influx of new people.
The suburban village is caught between two plans to develop land on Mosley Common and next to RHS Garden Bridgewater, which could see more than 1,000 new homes built.
The area’s Labour MP Michael Wheeler has previously described these developments as “wrong” because of the impact they could have on local people.
Conservative councillors in Boothstown have also raised concerns about a lack of amenities.
Mr Dennett said he understands the frustrations and that more needs to be done to address infrastructure problems.
He said:
“The issue isn’t necessarily the supply of new housing, the issue is infrastructure.
“At the moment we expect everything from the developer to meet the needs of that neighbourhood and community, and the maths just does not stack up.
“You’re not going to get enough money out of a development as well as their profit being protected under the National Planning Policy Framework by at least 20 percent.
“Government is going to have to work with us here to find those solutions, to build more doctors surgeries.”
Salford council’s vision for the borough’s future includes tackling poverty and making the city ‘child friendly.’
This includes investment in ‘essential frontline and community-led services’ as well as improve access to childcare for low income households.
The town hall has committed to investing £1.3 million into school improvements, and creating a city-wide strategy to encourage regular attendance at school.
It has also used the government’s Household Support Fund to provide meal vouchers to children during school holidays.
