![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_240823bee5.jpg\")
(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\nThe mayor was speaking at the launch of the new Greater Manchester Strategy, outlining his key priorities until 2035(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n
Greater Manchester is heading for its \u2018best decade since the Victorian period\u2019, Andy Burnham<\/a> has claimed.<\/p>\n The mayor was speaking at the launch of the new \u2018Greater Manchester Strategy\u2019 on Wednesday evening (July 9), which outlined the Labour<\/a> politician\u2019s priorities for the next decade. They included some new announcements, and previously trailed policies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis next decade, the one ahead of us, will be the best decade in the city-region since the Victorian period,\u201d Mr Burnham, first elected in 2017, told council leaders, transport bosses, and business supremos at the launch at the newly renovated Campfield market hall in the city centre.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the opportunity in front of us. We have got that in our hands. It\u2019s about delivering everything we know we can to improve our residents\u2019 lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Never miss a story with the MEN’s daily Catch Up newsletter – get it in your inbox by signing up here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n He named his \u2018number one priority\u2019 as \u2018freeing the coyote-region from the housing crisis\u2019, setting a target of \u2018within two years we hit a tipping point where we are building more social homes than we are losing\u2019 through the right-to-buy process.<\/p>\n But the mayor\u2019s speech announced the confirmation of five new \u2018mayoral development corporations\u2019 (MDCs) which are vehicles Mr Burnham\u2019s office can use to speed up development and build projects directly in a given location.<\/p>\n The five places where development is being targeted are Bolton<\/a> town centre; Leigh town centre, where a health campus is planned; Oldham<\/a>, for its \u2018sport town\u2019 project around Oldham Athletic; Ashton<\/a> and Stalybridge<\/a>; and finally Middleton<\/a>, where the MDC will be co-chaired by comedian Steve Coogan.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will kick-start a new chapter for the town,\u201d said the Alan Partridge creator, who hails from Middleton.<\/p>\n Tram-trains will be rolled out for the Leigh and Bolton MDCs, with the same technology eyed for Heywood<\/a>, the mayor added.<\/p>\n Other transport schemes mentioned in the strategy\u2019s summary include making the Bee Network fully-electric by 2030, which will include \u2018all local rail lines\u2019, which was announced earlier this year.<\/p>\n The number 153 bus from city centre Manchester to Bury<\/a>, via Prestwich<\/a>, and number 17 from the city centre to Rochdale<\/a> via Middleton will both add night buses later this year.<\/p>\n The final policy area to see a swathe of changes is health, where leaders aim to reduce smoking rates to less than 5pc, down from 12.5pc two years ago. Improvements in waiting times for A&E, GP appointments, mental health support, and operations are also promised, as is a roll-out of the Live Well programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mayor was speaking at the launch of the new Greater Manchester Strategy, outlining his key priorities until…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[8916,15333,748,393,4884,11564,2465,285,8825,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-251449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-andy-burnham","9":"tag-bee-network","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-greater-manchester-combined-authority","14":"tag-manchester","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-transport-for-greater-manchester","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114824738582789850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_Steve-Coogan-comments.jpg\")
(Image: PA)<\/p>\n