Andy Burnham said the UK is in a housing crisis and wants to deliver the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period. He tied that pledge to the pressure many people face from unaffordable rents, long waits for social housing and the cost of buying a home in England.
The average house price in England was £300,000 last year, almost eight times average earnings. Burnham’s call lands while the Labour government is already falling behind on its 1.5 million-home target for England.
Burnham and Manchester
Burnham, who is mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, has been credited by some with overseeing a building boom in Manchester. Critics say serious housing problems remain in the city region, which leaves his claim to scale up council housebuilding under close scrutiny.
His proposal also sits beside Keir Starmer’s wider housing pledge. During the 2025 Spending Review, the Labour government set aside £39bn to fund 300,000 new social and affordable houses over 10 years, an approach the government said would “reinvigorate” council housebuilding.
England council housebuilding
The gap Burnham is trying to fill is large. In the 1950s, councils in England were building almost 200,000 new council homes a year. In 2025, councils were building just 1,970 new council homes a year.
Much of the local authority stock was sold off under the right-to-buy policy introduced by the Thatcher government, and only around half of all councils in England now either own or build homes directly. If Burnham means councils themselves would build the homes, that would require them to scale up to tens of thousands a year and rebuild the teams needed to plan, commission and manage delivery.
Labour government target
The government’s own 300,000-home programme over 10 years works out at around 30,000 new homes a year, with the majority expected to be social housing built by not-for-profit housing associations using government grants. That is different from a direct council buildout, and the distinction shapes what Burnham’s pledge would require in practice.
If Burnham instead includes new social housing delivered by housing associations and let at social rents, the route looks more achievable. Social rents are typically around half of equivalent local market rents, which is why the promised homes would matter most to people shut out of the market now.
Burnham has not set out how many homes he would build or how the programme would be funded. For people waiting for a council home, the next test is whether his plan becomes a direct council building programme or a broader social housing push that can plug into existing government money.
