Manchester is building more homes than the whole of Greater London

Manchester is building more new homes than the whole of Greater London, the northern city’s council says.Figures published by Manchester council this week showed a total of 4,766 homes were built in the city in 2025/26.City leaders in Manchester said this is more than all of the Greater London area, which managed to build 4,261 homes in the same period.The mayor of London’s office has been approached for comment.In the pipeline for Manchester’s future councillors want to expand the boundary of the city centre and kick on with a plan to build 36,000 homes by 2032.“We are ramping up delivery by working closely with our housing partners, by accessing grant funding and using council-owned brownfield land to deliver the homes we need,” said Coun Gavin White, who leads on housing matters at Manchester council.Manchester’s skyline is studded with recently-built skyscrapers GettyBuilding homes at affordable rates is a key part of the city’s plan – that’s properties which are priced below market rates to varying extents.According to the council, more affordable homes were built last year than at any point since the late 1990s.This led to 901 affordable tenure homes being completed, of which around half (439) were for social rent.Coun White added: “We set out to be ambitious with how we are delivering new housing for our residents because we know how important a decent, secure and safe home is for the success of Manchester people.“Building genuinely affordable homes remains incredibly challenging but we continue to buck the national trend and we are seeing more new affordable homes built now than at any point this century.Read More“To have built the homes we have year-on-year is testament to our vision to deliver for our residents.”Manchester’s housing boom has come alongside calls from city leaders for a landmark move to devolve powers over rent controls.This is aimed at tackling a ‘stark’ problem over affordability and access to housing, as the city’s average rents have hit the £1,300 mark.Deansgate Councillor Marcus Johns said at a council meeting last week: “We are asking government to devolve powers to our new Greater Manchester mayor to develop limits on rents.According to Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), a charity that leads research into poverty, rent controls which limit rises at the lower of inflation or earnings could save the average renter in the north west £310 a year, or £450 on average across the UK.