Salford City Council has laid out its commitments to build 417 affordable, eco-friendly and “good quality” homes in the city region.
It’s set to be the biggest public housing programme the city has seen since the 1960s.
Arriving in the wake of around 6,000 households waiting to be housed by the council, it’s been revealed that former school sites will be turned into community-led housing run by tenants, while the other schemes will belong to wholly council-owned company Dérive.
All the new homes – a mix of one to five-bedroom houses and apartments – will be low carbon and low energy units, which will be built with a “fabric first” approach.
It’s believed that the local authority will have to borrow up to £65 million to finance the “ambitious” project, but it hopes that the housing programme will end up enabling the saving of council cash in the future.
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What exactly is in store for Salford then?
The new housing includes 47 flats and four houses on the Clifton Green in Pendlebury – for which planning permission has already been granted – 12 houses in Brassington Avenue and six houses and 35 apartments in Ryall Avenue in Ordsall, which were given the go ahead by the planning panel in October, a total of 111 homes built at the former St Luke’s Primary School in Weaste and the Irwell Valley Lower School in Irwell Riverside, of which 69 will be owned by the Broughton Trust and Inspiring Communities Housing.
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The council has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding agreement with the two community-led organisations, which means it will work in partnership to provide much-needed affordable homes.
Contractor G and J Seddon has been chosen to build all of these homes.
PRP / Salford City CouncilPRP / Salford City Council
Plans for 177 homes in Longshaw Drive, Little Hulton are also being prepared, but construction company Wates will not progress the proposal past the planning application stage as their costings were too high for the council, and the local authority also plans to acquire a further eight houses and 17 one-bedroom apartments being built by Salix Homes in Kara Street, Langworthy.
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Peter Openshaw – Assistant Director at Dérive – described the developer’s first set of schemes as the biggest public housebuilding programme by the city since the 1960s, but admitted the 417 homes will require the council to borrow between £60 – £65 million.
And future schemes would require further borrowing still.
Bill Hinds – former Leader of Salford City Council who is now the lead member for finance – said it’s the most “ambitious” council housing project in his 37 years as a councillor, adding: “Sixty-plus million pounds is a lot of money, so it is absolutely crucial how we do borrow that money – the most resilient forms of borrowing to enable us to do that.”
The scheme is relying on grant funding from the UK government’s affordable housing public body – Homes England.
PRP / Salford City Council
Paul Dennett – Mayor of Salford – said councils need to be more “interventionist” in order to tackle the current “housing and homelessness crisis” in this country.
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He said: “What we need to get back to is what happened in post-World War Two in many respects. Councils were building council housing en masse and homelessness in this country was rendered statistically insignificant.
“The moral and ethical argument is strong, but I also think the empirical argument is really strong for actually being more interventionist in a market that clearly isn’t delivering the homes that we need.”
Approving the scheme yesterday, he added: “This is a fantastic initiative and development which will hopefully put pressure on the market, but also encourage local authorities up and down the country to play a much more active role in the housing market moving forward as we drive up standards, as we deliver net-zero carbon homes, as we tackle the housing and homelessness crisis moving forward.”
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You can find more information via the Salford City Council website here.
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Tameside police officers hailed ‘absolute heroes’ after saving the life of a seven-year-old girl
Emily Sergeant
Two Tameside police officers have been hailed as “absolute heroes” after saving the life of a seven-year-old little girl.
It comes after emergency services were called to an address in the Greater Manchester borough of Tameside earlier this week (29 November), and found a young girl who was struggling to breath and coughing up blood after choking on a sweet.
Police Constables Aaron Kincaid and James Blundell, from Greater Manchester Police‘s (GMP) Tameside division, were first on the scene.
To the huge relief of the girl’s parents, who were said to be “understandably distressed” and concerned for her welfare, PC Kincaid jumped straight into action and was able to utilise his first aid training to full effect by going on to successfully dislodge the sweet from the youngster’s throat, and then helping to calm her down before the paramedics arrived.
Whilst PC Kincaid looked after the little girl, PC Blundell did “everything he could” to help the parents remain calm.
Paramedics then took over once they arrived, and the young girl was taken to hospital as a precaution.
#NEWS | Tameside officers praised for saving the life of a 7-year-old girl who was choking.
The officers used their first aid training to dislodge the sweet, whilst helping the young girl and parents remain calm until paramedics arrived.
Reflecting on the incident, and hailing his officers “absolute heroes”, Superintendent Mike Walsh, from GMP’s Tameside district, said: “PCs Aaron Kincaid and James Blundell acted without hesitation during the incident, and took control of the situation that they were faced with.
“They deserve every credit for staying calm under extreme pressure and for working together as a team and utilising their training to lifesaving effect, and I’m sure the girl’s parents and family will consider them to be absolute heroes.”
“We’re both glad that we were in the right place at the right time,” PC Kincaid added.
“I have a daughter the same age as the little girl who needed our help, and I cannot tell you how much of a relief it was when she started breathing normally and said she was okay after I had managed to dislodge the sweet.
“The little girl gave me a thank you hug before she went to hospital, but I couldn’t have done what I did without PC Blundell’s assistance, so it was a real team effort.”
Featured Image – GMP
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Someone has plastered posters advertising ‘authorised drug zones’ all over Manchester city centre
Daisy Jackson
Posters promoting ‘authorised’ drug use and sales have appeared all over Manchester today.
The posters even include Greater Manchester Police and Manchester City Council logos – though, obviously, without the consent of either authority.
The fake posters have also been springing up in other cities, with locals in Leeds spotting them all over the place yesterday.
They read: “Crack and heroin zone. The sale and use of Crack and Heroin is authorised in this area.”
The fake posters have been spotted outside the Central Library and in the Northern Quarter, as well as at locations in other parts of the city.
They were quickly removed by authorities, who say they were posted illegally.
West Yorkshire Police said yesterday: “We are aware of fake posters that have been illegally posted at locations in and around Leeds city centre and are making further enquiries.”
Greater Manchester Police and Manchester City Council have also been approached for comment.
Manchester mayoral candidate Nick Buckey wrote on X: “The lack of action to the drug epidemic in Greater Manchester is so huge that people thought these posters were legitimate.
“When jokes seems like reality then we know we have a problem.”
It appears that the group behind the drug posters project is Pattern Up, a ‘young artist collective from Brighton making their mark on the streets with provocative and witty installations’.
Plenty of people seem to have fallen for the stunt, believing it’s real, with one person posting on Instagram: “Can’t find anything online so surely fake news unless someone has a source.”
Another wrote: “Hahaha f*ck off this can’t be legit.”