{"id":6107822,"date":"2026-06-22T18:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/?p=6107822"},"modified":"2026-06-22T18:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:01:50","slug":"starmers-resignation-paves-the-way-for-andy-burnham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/news\/starmers-resignation-paves-the-way-for-andy-burnham\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer’s resignation paves the way for Andy Burnham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation as Prime Minister has triggered a Labour leadership contest that could see Andy Burnham enter Downing Street within weeks. <\/strong><\/p>\n

If no rival emerges, Burnham could become Labour leader and Prime Minister as early as mid-July. If it is contested, a winner is expected before Parliament returns from its summer recess on 1 September.<\/p>\n

Who is Andy Burnham?<\/h2>\n

So who, exactly, is Andy Burnham, and what is his approach to housing?<\/p>\n

Burnham is a highly experienced politician at both national and regional levels. First elected to Parliament in 2001, he spent more than a decade in Westminster, serving in several Cabinet positions under Gordon Brown.<\/p>\n

Over the past nine years, he has become one of the country’s most recognisable regional politicians and is often referred to as the “King of the North”. A reformer and strong supporter of devolution, he has argued that city regions should have greater control over transport, housing and economic development. Critics, however, have described him as a political “weathervane”, highlighting a career that saw him serve under both the Blair-Brown and Corbyn wings of the Labour Party.<\/p>\n

Billions of pounds of regeneration and infrastructure investment<\/h2>\n

During his time as mayor, Greater Manchester has attracted billions of pounds of regeneration and infrastructure investment and become one of the UK’s strongest-performing housing markets. According to Rightmove, house prices in the city have risen 63% over the past decade, compared with just 7% in London. The region has also attracted major employers, investment and population growth, helping to cement its position as one of the country’s leading economic centres.<\/p>\n

Unlocking new homes and wider regeneration<\/h2>\n

A defining feature of Burnham’s approach has been linking housing growth to infrastructure investment. He has consistently argued that transport improvements should not be viewed in isolation but as a way of unlocking new homes and wider regeneration, and has pledged to reinstate the Manchester leg of HS2 if he becomes Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

Some of the biggest development projects during Burnham’s mayoralty have included Victoria North, a \u00a34 billion regeneration programme set to deliver 15,000 homes, and Mayfield, one of the largest city-centre regeneration schemes in the UK.<\/p>\n

Devolution<\/h2>\n

Devolution has been another cornerstone of his thinking. Burnham has repeatedly argued that city regions should have greater control over planning, housing delivery and regeneration funding, believing local leaders are better placed than Whitehall to drive development. A Burnham premiership would almost certainly see a further shift of power towards regional authorities, potentially giving mayors and combined authorities a much larger role in determining where and how homes are built.<\/p>\n

Social housing is another of his priorities. Burnham has been calling for more affordable and social homes for some time and has argued that the housing crisis cannot be solved through private development alone. He has supported greater public investment in housebuilding and regularly pressed for stronger powers and funding to help local authorities and housing associations deliver new homes.<\/p>\n

Landlords<\/h2>\n

For investors and landlords, however, the picture is more mixed.<\/p>\n

Burnham is a landlord himself, but his record suggests he is still happy to take an interventionist approach. During his mayoralty, landlord fines increased by 43%. More controversially, he has previously called for rent controls.<\/p>\n

At the same time, though, he has backed grants of up to \u00a330,000 to help landlords improve energy efficiency and supported Greater Manchester’s Good Landlord Charter.<\/p>\n

Radical reforms<\/h2>\n

There are also signs that he could pursue more radical reforms in other areas, too. Burnham has shown interest in replacing Council Tax and Stamp Duty with a land-based property tax and has consistently supported stronger protections for leaseholders, including ending the sale of new leasehold homes.<\/p>\n

The biggest question, however, may not be what Burnham plans on doing, but how he would pay for it all.<\/p>\n

The money markets<\/h2>\n

Many of the policies he supports, from major infrastructure investment to increased social housebuilding, would require significant amounts of public money at a time when Britain is already carrying high levels of debt. That would inevitably raise questions about borrowing, taxation or both. Burnham has, for example, backed greater public control of essential services and argued that bringing water companies back into public ownership should be considered.<\/p>\n

And when he suggested earlier this year that governments should not be “in hock to the bond markets”, it spooked the financial markets.<\/p>\n

Mixed messages<\/h2>\n

Since then, Burnham has sought to reassure investors and has said he supports fiscal rules and that there “needs to be a plan to get debt down”. Allies have also stressed that any economic programme would be built on a foundation of fiscal stability.<\/p>\n

Burnham’s mixed messages mean it is not always easy to pinpoint where he really stands. What is clear, however, is that his housing record has been built around growth, regeneration and development. Whether that can be replicated nationally while maintaining market confidence, and without significant tax rises, borrowing or both, we may soon find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation as Prime Minister has triggered a Labour leadership contest that could see Andy Burnham enter Downing Street within weeks. If no rival emerges, Burnham could become Labour leader and Prime Minister as early as mid-July. If it is contested, a winner is expected before Parliament returns from its summer recess on… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4233,"featured_media":12767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,2,61,765,42,6,766],"tags":[804],"class_list":["post-6107822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news","category-buy-to-let-landlords","category-construction","category-property-investment","category-regeneration","category-uk-housing-market","category-uk-rental-market","tag-andy-burnham"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6107822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4233"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6107822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6107822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6107825,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6107822\/revisions\/6107825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6107822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6107822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6107822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}