The Guinness Partnership welcomes Andy Burnham to new development in Manchester

Catriona Simons, Group Chief Executive at The Guinness Partnership, and senior colleagues from the development team, were also joined by other councillors from Manchester City Council and representatives from contractors, P. Casey & Co. Ltd.  

Guinness is developing 68 energy efficient, affordable homes as part of Project 500 (P500) - a Manchester City Council led project launched in 2022, which benefits from brownfield housing funding administered by Greater Manchester Combined Authority, to increase the delivery of affordable housing across Greater Manchester.

The 68 social rent homes which Guinness is delivering are:

· Benmore Road, Blackley - 20 two-storey, 2/3 bedroom, semi-detached and detached social rent homes.

· White Moss Road, Blackley - 30 two-storey, 2/3 bedroom, semi-detached and detached social rent homes.

· Queens Road, Blackley - eight social rent homes and Palgrave six social rent homes.

· Canberra Street, Clayton - four social rent homes.

Catriona Simons, Group Chief Executive at The Guinness Partnership said: “We are pleased to be working with the Mayor, the City Council, and our other partners, on Project 500, to bring much needed, high-quality homes to Manchester as part of our commitment to supporting development in Greater Manchester.

“The new homes optimise use of small undeveloped sites, are built to increased space standards, and will have an EPC rating of “A” -, making them more affordable to live in. We look forward to completing Benmore Road in April 2025.”   

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester said: "This development by The Guinness Partnership is a fantastic example of how we're working with partners and investing with our Brownfield Housing Fund to deliver these homes across Greater Manchester.

"These 68 new social rent homes are helping to address housing need across the city-region by creating sustainable and energy-efficient housing spaces. Partnerships like this are essential if we’re going to tackle the housing crisis and ensure everyone in Greater Manchester has access to a safe and affordable home."

Councillor Bev Craig, Leader of Manchester City Council said: "We know just how important good quality, genuinely affordable and energy efficient homes are when we think about the future of Manchester.

“Manchester City Council has an ambitious plan to build over 10,000 genuinely affordable council and social homes by the turn of the next decade. We are currently building more new social and council homes this year than at any point over the last two decades. As we strive towards this goal Project 500 was an innovative solution to help us rise to this challenge, and it's great to see the progress our partners at Guinness have made.

"Working with Mayor Andy Burnham and GMCA we want to secure more funding to build even more properties like this to make sure everyone can aspire to having a good quality, energy efficient and genuinely affordable place to call home."

Benmore Road and White Moss Road are two of several of Guinness’s Project 500 (P500) development projects in Manchester. The wider project is a collaboration between Manchester City Council, Manchester Housing Providers Partnership (MHPP) members, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), and Homes England – as landowners, developers, and funders respectively.