Manchester City Council has launched a development company named This City with its first housing site in Ancoats.

The This City housing development company has been established to accelerate the number of new homes for Manchester people.

Schemes developed through This City will focus on high quality, low-carbon homes and will deliver a mix of accessible rent and market properties – with the latter helping to subsidise the development of homes priced at or below the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate. This means they will be accessible to people in receipt of housing benefit.

The first development site on Rodney Street in Ancoats has been unveiled as the first project by the new company, with Wates Construction appointed as the lead contractor responsible for delivering the 128 apartments and townhouses.

All future This City developments will include a minimum of 20% accessible rented homes on completion, which will be available at or below the Local Housing Allowance level.

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This City is a new concept that will allow the Council to take control of part of the affordable housing delivery pipeline for the city and has the ambition to scale up to deliver up to 500 new homes each year – thereby increasing the number of accessible rent homes available to Manchester people.

Manchester is currently on track to exceed the city’s ambitious target to help build 6,400 new affordable homes between 2015 and 2025 – accounting for at least 20% of the city’s pipeline of 32,000 homes. Now, more than 7,000 affordable homes are expected to be built by 2025.

The Rodney Street development will also include high quality facilities for residents, with public green space accessible to all being a key element of the final proposals, complementing the wider public realm proposals for the local area.

The Rodney Street site forms part of a coordinated phase of development by the City Council, Manchester Life Development Company and Great Places across four underused sites in the Poland Street area of Ancoats and two sites in New Islington to deliver over 400 new homes to meet a range of housing needs in support of Manchester's housing requirements, and space for more local businesses and the community.

This phase builds on recent regeneration successes to further the evolution of Ancoats into a sustainable neighbourhood that is even more attractive to people and families keen to settle and stay in the area.

Wates Construction, which is part of the leading privately-owned construction, residential development, and property services company Wates Group, will work closely with its Technical Excellence Centre to design and build homes using the latest technology and construction materials. It will create energy efficient properties that not only ensure lower energy costs for residents, but also contribute to Manchester's 2038 Zero Carbon ambitions.