Co-op News (August 2019)

Andy Burnham:
‘It’s time for co-ops to get ready – because the carbon transition and devolution
will bring opportunities’
After his keynote speech to Co-op Congress in June,
Co-op News caught up with Greater Manchester
mayor Andy Burnham to discuss the role of co-ops
in his plans for the devolved region, and the work of
the Co-operative Commission he has set up. With a
new industrial strategy and an ambition to make
the city region carbon-neutral by 2038, Mr Burnham
wants co-ops to help drive the economic transition…
Interview by
Anca Voinea
& Miles Hadfield
There have been issues of UK local
authorities selling off valued public land
and assets. Will the Co-operative Commission
consider common ownership of such assets
to protect them and use them in a way
that adds social value?
Certainly. That’s a logical thing to do rather than
having a public body sell straight to the private
sector. To protect the future use of the land you might
consider a community co-op. That would be an idea
I would be keen to hear from the Commission on,
because there is work on the way to identify land
across Greater Manchester that is publicly owned that
might be released for housing development.
But I think it’s important not to make the mistakes
of the past, like with the right to buy – when you
are trying to have a big effort to build, to have new
policies, but then you find you are having the same
problem 10 years down the line where you’ve not got
the control over the new properties that you build.
And you’ve not got that social ethos. So certainly,
that’s an idea we can look at.
We’re also exploring options for town centre
regeneration, particularly through the Town Centre
Challenge, where we are working with our 10 councils
to identify towns where we can come in and hopefully
stimulate a different town centre economy – perhaps
more residential with more cafés, bars or restaurants.
As part of that, we could create co-op and community
spaces. Prestwich has a co-op there [Village Greens
Community shop]. You see this more and more –
co-ops using redundant retail space – but it’s whether
or not we can factor that into some of our thinking
around our Town Centre Challenge. We launched
the first Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC)
in Stockport to lead the regeneration of the Town
Centre West. It will be interesting to see how we
might ensure that the co-op sector is represented in
terms of the decision making and the thinking about
the regeneration of the town centre, because it’s
important in terms of building in that sustainability
and that sense of new community – which might not
be there if you simply leave it to the private sector.
Lewisham and Bromley councils supported
Lewisham Credit Union with grants to give
interest-free loans to people facing eviction.
Would you consider a similar homelessness
prevention scheme?
We’ve looked at that with regards to universal credit,
recognising there is this gap of four to six weeks before
people receive their money. We haven’t yet come up
with any viable proposal but I’m still interested to
see whether we could have a small-scale scheme of
that kind. Of course, the Homelessness Reduction
Act is now a law and it requires public bodies to take
actions to mitigate risks of homelessness, and I think
stop-gap funding, to help people between the point
where they are eligible for universal credit and the
moment when they get the money, is something we
need to continue to look at. It could prevent the spiral
into debt that can happen if people are left waiting
three or four weeks for their money.
26 | AUGUST 2019