Where the council is planning to build new housing – and where it probably won’t

It's been nearly two years since Manchester council decided to take matters into its own hands by setting up a development firm in a bid to tackle the housing crisis – and now work on This City's first two schemes is under way. Offering a mix of 'truly affordable' housing as well as some to be rented at market rates, the arms-length company puts the town hall in the driver's seat.

Unlike traditional council homes, properties built and managed by the town hall's development arm cannot be sold to tenants under Right to Buy rules and taken out of the social housing stock. The council hopes this will make it easier to house the 15,000 residents and their families currently on the waiting list.

Soon after council leader Bev Craig started the top job at the town hall, the local authority announced that the first sites to be developed by This City will be in central Manchester. Some of these new homes will be available at the Manchester Living Rent rate which means they will be capped at the level that housing benefit pays locally, opening up opportunities for anyone to live there.

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Work on This City's first two schemes has now started. In Ancoats, 128 new homes are under construction at Rodney Street while a further 100 new apartments are set to be built off Newton Street in the Northern Quarter.

The town hall now has its eyes on six more sites for development across the city. But over the next six months it will look for investors to make it a reality.

Up to 1,567 homes could be built on these sites in north and east Manchester, the largest of which could accommodate up to 625 new homes in Harpurhey. The other sites identified