Burnham takes small-town regeneration to the national stage as PM
For Britain's next prime minister, Andy Burnham, a sprawling car park in the centre of a former cotton-manufacturing town in north-west England symbolises everything that went wrong with past development projects that hollowed out town centres.
He wants to reverse that trend by using public money to pump-prime investment in housing, transport and urban renewal, attracting the scale of private capital needed to regenerate such towns while focusing on the needs of local communities.
Burnham, who served as Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 until June, is expected to become Britain's seventh prime minister in a decade on Monday, succeeding Keir Starmer.
So far, he has revealed little about his government's first 100-day plan or his broader vision for governing.
However, at least 10 officials, former aides and people who have worked with him told Reuters that plans for places such as the town centre of Middleton — which residents say has become little more than a "drive-through" because of its vast car park and two major roads cutting through it — provide a blueprint for his wider agenda.
Like several post-industrial towns surrounding Manchester, Middleton's prosperity has faded. Its shopping centre is dominated by charity and discount stores, good jobs are scarce, and frustration is growing among residents who feel they have been left behind, said Rose Marley, a former mayoral adviser and now co-chair of the Middleton Mayoral Development Corporation, established last year.
The regeneration project is considering building up to 1,200 new homes, creating commercial opportunities and investing in green spaces to restore civic pride, Marley said, describing the initiative as still being in the early stages of what will be a multi-year programme.
The revival of towns such as Middleton is expected to become a key political test for the Labour Party. Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, currently tops opinion polls and has made gains in similar communities amid declining confidence in the main political parties' ability to improve living standards.
'Place first'
In his first speech after returning to Parliament last month, Burnham, 56, said he wanted to build a more collaborative style of politics that puts "place first, not party first".
That approach was first tested in Stockport, another Greater Manchester town, where a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) regeneration programme has transformed derelict streets into one of Britain's largest town-centre renewal projects.
The historic Underbank quarter, once dotted with empty shops, has become busy again, while a new transport interchange featuring a rooftop park is set to connect to Manchester's tram network.
Earlier this month, the Institute for Government think tank described Stockport, with a population of around 300,000, as a successful model for town-centre regeneration. It cited the delivery of 1,500 new homes since 2019, including 200 classified as affordable housing.
The town aims to increase that figure to 8,000 homes by 2040.
"Collaborative politics is part of the secret sauce," said Gavin Barwell, former chief of staff to Conservative prime minister Theresa May and now chair of the Stockport Mayoral Development Corporation (SMDC).
The SMDC has attracted £600 million in private investment, while local authorities say visitor numbers at the town's shopping centre have risen 40 percent year on year.
The Middleton project is at an earlier stage, but Marley said she hoped to publish the results of a public consultation soon as the corporation seeks the private and mutual investment needed to build homes, create public spaces and improve transport links.
She said Burnham had encouraged her to build cross-party support, and three local Reform UK councillors are now involved in the project.
National plan
According to former advisers and Labour insiders, Burnham wants to replicate the Greater Manchester model across Britain. They describe the strategy as focusing on faster delivery, bringing in expertise from outside government to overcome bureaucratic delays, and encouraging cross-party cooperation.
However, he faces significant constraints.
Seeking to reassure financial markets, Burnham has pledged to stick to fiscal rules requiring day-to-day spending to be funded from revenue, while also honouring Labour's 2024 commitment not to raise taxes on working people. That leaves little room for major new spending.
Burnham argues that his approach relies on using public investment to unlock much larger sums of private capital, rather than waiting for the market to "magically solve the challenges that were left behind in the aftermath of deindustrialisation".
He points to his decision to fund a residential development alongside Stockport's new transport interchange after private developers judged the scheme commercially unviable.
"Were we going to let the market decide what Stockport could be, or were we going to do that? It has paid dividends already — that development is fully let," Burnham said in November.
Mark Roberts, the Liberal Democrat leader of Stockport Council, said the model depends on more than simply constructing profitable developments. Burnham has insisted that companies involved in the Middleton project must also commit to offering apprenticeships to local young people.
Replicating Manchester's growth
Burnham points to Greater Manchester's economic performance as evidence that his approach can succeed.
Official figures show the region's economy grew by 17.4% between 2017 and 2023, the fastest growth among Britain's 46 sub-regions and well ahead of the second-placed West of England, which recorded growth of 13.4 percent.
Replicating that performance across the country will be considerably more difficult.
Unlike many rural and coastal regions, Greater Manchester has benefited from decades of sustained investment and the economic pull of a major city, supported by universities with strong science and research capabilities.
With Britain's next general election due in about three years, Burnham will also face pressure to deliver results quickly.
Starmer, who lost the support of many Labour MPs partly because he failed to halt Reform UK's rising popularity, was also criticised for a slow start that undermined the confidence of many businesses — confidence Burnham will need to secure investment.
The Confederation of British Industry welcomed Burnham's emphasis on investment beyond London but cautioned against imposing further costs on businesses, warning that the burden was already approaching a "tipping point".
"The economic benefits of devolution are unclear, but the costs are tangible," said JPMorgan economist Allan Monks. "Some transitional costs in the near term appear likely, together with some loss of economies of scale. This could raise overall public spending."