Business & Industry
Each decision made must pass one test: whether it makes life better for the people living across Greater Manchester. For growth, that means good jobs and prospects in every corner.
By most measures, the last decade has gone well, with the city region economy growing by an average of 3.1% a year since 2015, against a UK average of 1.5% and passing £100 billion for the first time.
The work now is to extend that opportunity into every borough and town, and to make growth go even further, ensuring the benefits reach every person.
Devolution enables coordinated regional growth
People should be able to see it on their own high street, which is why the £20 million Good Growth High Streets Fund opens later this year to local businesses and community groups, backing their own ideas for the places they shop and socialise.
Devolution is what makes that possible, and 10 years of practice have shown what it can do for a city region. Greater Manchester led the way on it, and those powers are now being opened up to more of England, because devolving decisions helps regional economies grow and creates the conditions for good growth in every postcode.
It means control over transport, skills, housing and regeneration all sits in one place here, meaning infrastructure, homes and training are sequenced around the same site instead of just hoping that they arrive together.
Fund delivers homes, jobs and investment
The £2 billion Good Growth Fund puts patient capital into projects the market would not take on alone and returns what it earns to the next ones. Its first wave is already backing schemes that will deliver nearly 3,000 homes, over 22,000 jobs and 2 million square feet of employment space.
A good home is the foundation of a good life, and no one should feel priced out of their community. So, we are delivering 50,000 new council, social and affordable homes by 2039, with 10,000 built or on site by May 2028. A new Public Sector Land Bank will ask public bodies to release disused land for building.
A good home is the foundation of a good life
Manchester scales growth sites
Atom Valley, the largest of the growth sites, covers 2,500 acres across Bury, Rochdale and Oldham, with Kingsway Business Park and Stakehill already operating inside it, and a Mayoral Development Corporation bringing forward development-ready land, housing and transport. Add Northfold, which reaches into Bolton and Wigan, and the two sites will deliver up to 20,000 jobs, 7,000 homes and a health innovation campus, all served by a Bee Network back in public control.
In life sciences, Convatec is putting £200 million into a new research facility at CityLabs, Vortex has moved up from London to work with the NHS on non-invasive cancer diagnosis, and IQVIA has backed the Medicines Evaluation Unit in Wythenshawe.
For anyone weighing up long-term capital, Greater Manchester can offer a pipeline across 10 boroughs rather than one district, a partnership between the public and private sectors, and a fund that de-risks the projects that matter most.
It has already brought more than 2,000 foreign-owned businesses here, and Greater Manchester attracts more foreign direct investment than any UK city region outside London.
Boosting skills and closing gaps
They come for the talent as well. The five universities produce around 36,000 graduates a year, almost half of whom stay after they qualify. For the young people who do not go to university, the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate, designed with our own employers, gives a clear route into skilled work. In 2004, around a quarter of working-age adults in Manchester had no qualifications at all, and after two decades of this work, that figure is now 4.6%.
Closing gaps like that one across all 10 boroughs is what good growth means here, and it is how we build a Greater Manchester that works for all of us.
