Bury needs 452 new homes a year and built 1,339 in five years. What the draft Homes for Bury strategy says, and how to comment before 5 November.
Bury Council opened a twelve-week consultation on Thursday 13 August on Homes for Bury, its draft housing strategy for 2026 to 2036. The press release lists priorities. The document itself carries the number that matters: the borough has to deliver an average of 452 new homes a year, and over the past five years it managed roughly 268.
The 452 figure comes from Places for Everyone, the joint development plan for nine Greater Manchester districts and part of Bury’s statutory development plan. It sets a stepped requirement: 246 homes a year from 2022 to 2025, rising to 452 from 2025 to 2039, and 520 from 2030 to 2039. The emerging Bury Local Plan carries the 452 figure on from 2039 to 2043, giving a total of 9,486 homes over the 2022 to 2043 plan period. (Bury Council, Homes for Bury Housing Strategy 2026 to 2036)
Against that, the strategy’s own achievements section records 1,339 homes built across the borough between 2020 and 2025, of which 384 were affordable. Spread over those five years that averages about 268 a year, our own arithmetic on the council’s figure, and it is a little over half the annual rate the plan now requires.
Where the homes are meant to go
Three strategic allocations in Places for Everyone account for more than 6,000 of them, and all three are on Bury’s edges rather than in its town centres:
- Elton Reservoir, approximately 3,500 homes, with about 875 affordable. The strategy describes a new Metrolink stop, a primary school, local centres and health and community facilities, phased over the long term. Affordable homes are to be split 60 per cent affordable or social rent and 40 per cent affordable home ownership.
- Walshaw, approximately 1,250 homes, with about 300 affordable, plus a new primary school and a new link road.
- Simister and Bowlee, approximately 1,350 homes in Bury, with about 338 affordable, on a cross-boundary allocation tied to the Northern Gateway and Atom Valley employment area.
On top of those, Places for Everyone allocates 140 homes at Seedfield, part of which is already under construction as Roedeer Gardens, and around 200 homes at Castle Road within the wider Heywood and Pilsworth allocation. Across the strategic sites the strategy states an ambition of 6,440 homes, 25 per cent of them affordable and all built to net zero carbon and the Nationally Described Space Standards.
The affordable gap is the sharpest number in the document
The council’s Housing Needs and Demand Assessment identifies a net annual affordable housing shortfall of 1,017 homes, which the strategy says is far above current supply capacity. The housing register shows over 2,000 households waiting. Need is strongest for one and two-bedroom affordable homes, with an immediate requirement for three-bedroom family housing and a growing need for accessible and older people’s homes.
For scale: the borough delivered 384 affordable homes in five years against a shortfall the council puts at 1,017 every year. The strategy sets out an active pipeline of 1,616 new homes by 2030/31 on former council-owned brownfield land, including around 576 affordable and 180 for social rent, and records £770,000 of Section 106 affordable housing contributions received between 2021 and 2026 and £3 million of Right to Buy receipts committed to buying homes to reduce reliance on temporary accommodation.
Bury is not one housing market
The strategy splits the borough into five neighbourhood areas and gives a median house price for each in 2024. The spread is the argument for the whole document:
| Area | Median price, 2024 |
|---|---|
| East Bury (Bury East, Moorside, Redvales) | £165,000 |
| West and Radcliffe (Radcliffe, Ainsworth, Bury West) | £180,000 |
| North Bury (Ramsbottom, Tottington, North Manor, Elton) | £230,000 |
| Whitefield (Whitefield, Besses, Unsworth) | £245,000 |
| Prestwich (Prestwich, St Mary's, Sedgley) | £278,000 |
These are medians from the council’s own needs assessment for 2024, so they are not the same measure as the Land Registry mean we use on our Bury house prices page, and they are two years older. The ranking is the same either way: Prestwich at the top, the eastern side of Bury town at the bottom.
The strategy also puts numbers on tenure. Owner occupation in Bury stands at 66.9 per cent, above the England average of 63 per cent. Private renters are now 17 to 18 per cent of households, up sharply over the last decade, and about 15 per cent of households live in affordable housing. The fastest-growing age group is 50 to 64 year olds, up by around 10 per cent.
The council as landlord
Housing management came back in-house from the Six Town Housing arm’s-length organisation, giving the council direct control over around 7,716 homes. A stock condition survey has been running since 2022 and 88 per cent of council stock has now been surveyed, on a 20 per cent rolling programme each year.
What it means for you
The consultation runs from Thursday 13 August to Thursday 5 November, twelve weeks. Cabinet approved the draft for consultation on 30 June 2026, and the final strategy goes back to Cabinet later this year with a report on what the consultation found. (Bury Council, Bury Housing Strategy Consultation)
There are four ways to have your say:
- The online survey, linked from the council’s consultation page, with an easy read version alongside it.
- Email your comments to housingstrategy@bury.gov.uk at any point before 5 November.
- Two online events, both 6pm to 7.30pm: Monday 7 September for all residents and stakeholders, and Tuesday 8 September for people aged 35 and under. To book, call the freephone number 0800 612 9133 or email lynne.shaw@arc4.co.uk.
- Paper copies of the strategy or survey, or other formats, on request from the same freephone number.
If you live near one of the three strategic sites, the strategy is the place to argue about principle: how much affordable housing, what infrastructure comes first, what tenure mix. The sites themselves are already allocated through Places for Everyone, which was adopted in March 2024, so objecting to the allocations through this consultation will not reopen them. Individual applications are a separate matter, and we track those on our Bury planning news page.
The consultation documents include the full draft strategy, an executive summary, an easy read PDF, a short video and a frequently asked questions page, all on the council’s consultation page.
Have your say