This a scandal at national and local level. The mortgage premium's failings are for all to see, but lurking under the radar is the disastrous mis-management of Salford’s property sector. A race to bottom on standards and a sky’s-the-limit ethos for tax receipts in Salford City Council's coffers.

Whose side are Salford City Council on?

The Labour run Council allows new apartment blocks to be built with no affordable housing in them. Developers are allowed to syphon off millions in profits whilst we are priced out of our homes

The Labour run Council allows people to asset bank property. Owning a property with no-one living there is ridiculous during a housing crisis.

The Labour run Council doesn’t prevent entire apartment blocks falling into buy-to-let hands and impacting the property market.

The Labour run Council is failing to conduct adequate oversight on the building of the very apartment blocks they are so keen to give planning permission for.

Our Plan for Sustainable Housing

The Liberal Democrats believe in sustainable and affordable housing, where people have the right to live in vibrant communities with full amenities accessible to them and their families. 

We want to see appropriate infrastructure, services and amenities in place for current and future developments. We want to achieve this by:

• Integrating infrastructure and public service delivery into the planning process.
• Actively consulting communities about the areas they live in.
• Abolishing residential leaseholds and capping ground rents on commonhold and commercial leaseholds to a nominal fee, so that everyone has control over their property.
• Lobbying the Council to enact in full the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 which gives local people power the right to request powers from government to help promote sustainability within their communities and prevent the decline of protect local post offices, shops, bank branches, bus services sports facilities, , police station , doctors surgeries, dentists surgeries, community halls, fire stations, green spaces, sports facilities and recreational facilities.

A Fair Deal for Renters

Liberal Democrats have long fought to give tenants more security and protect them from unfair rent hikes – including longer tenancies of three years or more, with fair annual rent increases built-in, to give renters certainty. That fight is more important now than ever.

We're bringing our national campaign to abolish no-fault evictions to Salford, to stop landlords threatening to evict their tenants, extending the length of tenancies and ensuring rent can only increase by a fair amount each year.

Alternative Vision

We have three main priorities as part of our alternative vision to Build Sustainable Communities; the inclusion of provision of affordable homes, increased green space, and a improved public transport provisions. We are also calling for additional police on the beat, increased school places, more hospital and GP capacity and pollution offsetting measures to be included as considerations in the future housing planning applications. 

We need to prioritise the needs of the community as a whole at the heart of its framework by ensuring that all development has appropriate infrastructure, services and amenities in place. We want to see “adequate” business units, green spaces, amenities and affordable housing factored into the proposals. We believe this can be done through actively consulting communities about the areas they live in. The population of the Quays has grown 800% in a decade and is set to double in size again by 2030. If developments are approved, public service increases should be guaranteed to offset the population increase.