Burnham's first Labour Party Conference: what the property sector needs to watch

Two months in, he's governing much as he ran Greater Manchester: hands-on, brownfield-first and certain the state should be building homes rather than just waving them through. The flagship promise is the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war years, funded by the £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme. 

It hasn't gone smoothly. He campaigned on a programme that would be entirely council-built. The version that landed leans on housing associations and private "partners" too, with the council-built share looking slim. The rent caps were quietly dropped. And that £39bn? Money the last government had already set aside.  

Two months in, the word trailing him is "backtracking", which makes this speech as an opportunity for a reset.  

Council housing: partner or rival? 

Expect Burnham to go all in on publicly led building as the answer to a private sector he thinks is falling short. For the industry, that cuts both ways.  

The strategic-partner model opens up real joint-venture work, but it also drops a well-funded public builder into the market, hunting the same brownfield sites everyone else is. Listen for who gets named as a partner, and on what terms. 

Devolution, and the crack in it 

Devolution is a key mission for Burnham - it’s the Manchester model going national. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act, passed in April, gives mayors serious planning muscle.  

Development Orders that grant permission for set types of schemes in a defined area. A mayoral infrastructure levy. Call-in powers over major applications. The main translation is that the people who shape a scheme's fate increasingly sit in a combined authority, not Westminster. The sector must keep track of who holds the pen in each region and engage early. 

But there's a crack in it. In September, the government paused local government reorganisation, the plan to merge two-tier councils into unitaries and the plumbing devolution was meant to run through. Decisions for Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk were withdrawn, 14 more areas frozen, with no date to resume. So, the thing to watch at conference is how Burnham squares it, promising faster devolution while pausing the very reform meant to deliver it.  

Brownfield first 

This is where Burnham's instincts and national policy already line up. His Greater Manchester plan, Places for Everyone, put brownfield and urban sites first and set out to make development plan-led rather than fought out at appeal, though it still released Green Belt, which drew thousands of objections and a legal challenge.  

The national picture points the same way: the reworked NPPF keeps its weight behind brownfield, urban intensification and a plan-led system, with a "brownfield passport" designed to get such sites approved faster.  

It isn't brownfield alone, grey belt and homes near well-connected stations are in the mix too, but the direction is clear. Well-located brownfield with an up-to-date local plan behind it is swimming with the tide. Listen for anything on local plans, too: national policy now says growth shouldn't stall just because a council's plan is out of date, and most still don't have a current one. 

Right to Buy 

If Burnham believes one thing about housing, it's that the crisis began with selling off council homes. So, expect Right to Buy to feature. The Social Housing Bill already in Parliament stretches the qualifying period from three years to ten and slashes the discounts. For anyone working with housing associations or on affordable-led schemes, this runs straight into the pipeline. 

The Budget looming over it 

Conference is weeks out from the Budget on 28th October, so treat every housing line as a trailer. Burnham has parked wholesale property-tax reform for now, but the surcharge on homes over £2m still bites in 2028, and the questions around grant and delivery funding are wide open. Whatever he hints at in Liverpool is a fair guide to what lands on Budget Day.

The arguments that decide a scheme are happening earlier and more locally than ever, with mayors, councils and communities, long before a committee ever meets. That makes how you tell your story every bit as important as what you're building. Get in front of it early, and you're in a far stronger position. 

Conference will likely not hand the sector anymore certainty but, read it right, and it hands you a head start. 

At Cartwright we help property and construction clients make sense of the shifting landscape and tell a story communities and decision-makers can get behind. Get in touch to talk through your next scheme.