Reform Pledges Forensic Audit of Nearly £1 Billion in Skyscraper Loans Approved Under Andy Burnham

Reform Pledges Forensic Audit of Nearly £1 Billion in Skyscraper Loans Approved Under Andy Burnham

A Housing Fund Under Scrutiny

The controversy has its roots in a decision made during Andy Burnham’s seven-year tenure as chairman of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Over that period, the GMCA allocated more than £500 million in taxpayer-backed loans to Renaker, a Manchester-based developer, to finance the construction of thousands of luxury residential towers. The bulk of the authority’s housing fund flowed to a single private company. That concentration of public capital, largely unexamined at the time, would eventually draw sustained and damaging scrutiny.

Local developers were the first to raise objections. They criticised what they described as a systemic lack of transparency and characterised the loans as de facto subsidies that gave Renaker a structural advantage in the regional property market. The complaints were not merely rhetorical. Aubrey Weis, a rival developer, filed a formal legal claim arguing that Renaker had received “advantageous treatment” that distorted competition across Greater Manchester’s housing sector.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal rejected Weis’s claim. The Court of Appeal subsequently upheld that decision — but notably shared several of his underlying concerns. Weis has since threatened to escalate the case to the Supreme Court, ensuring the matter remains legally unresolved and politically live.

A Mayoral Race Shaped by Burnham’s Legacy

The Manchester mayoral election was triggered last month when Burnham won the parliamentary seat of Makerfield, departing City Hall for Westminster. He does so against a backdrop of speculation that he is positioning himself to eventually succeed Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. The question of what he authorised with public money in Greater Manchester now trails him into national politics.

Into that contest stepped Sian Astley, Reform UK’s candidate for the Manchester mayoralty. A property businesswoman and former Labour voter who backed Brexit in 2016, Astley first came to public attention through television programmes including BBC One’s DIY SOS and Getting the Builders In. Her manifesto, released on Monday, places the Renaker loans at its centre.

Astley has pledged to launch an “independent forensic audit” of every loan agreement connected to Renaker, and to publish each contract in full. Her stated objective is direct: “so residents can see exactly who received their money and on what terms.” The commitment amounts to a promise to open public records that the GMCA has not, to date, released comprehensively.

The Accountability Argument

“Vast sums of public money and business have been funnelled toward a small handful of connected interests,” Astley said in a statement accompanying her manifesto. “With very little scrutiny, these projects have enriched developers but delivered almost nothing for residents.”

The charge is pointed. Whether it is accurate in full depends on evidence that, by Astley’s own account, has not yet been made public. The audit she proposes would be the mechanism for testing it.

Astley’s principal opponent is Bev Craig, Labour leader of Manchester City Council, who worked alongside Burnham at the GMCA. Craig’s candidacy places Labour in the position of defending an institutional record it was, in part, responsible for building. The political geometry is uncomfortable.

What Remains Unresolved

The legal proceedings initiated by Weis have not produced a definitive verdict on whether the loans were unlawful or improper — only that the Competition Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal found they did not cross the legal threshold for the specific claims brought. That is a narrow finding. The Court of Appeal’s decision to echo some of Weis’s concerns without ruling in his favour leaves the substantive questions about transparency and preferential allocation formally open.

A Supreme Court referral would extend that uncertainty well into Burnham’s anticipated national political career. The loans, approved quietly over years of mayoralty, may yet require public accounting at the highest judicial level. Reform’s pledge to audit them independently adds a further political dimension — one that, regardless of the party’s electoral prospects in Manchester, keeps the pressure on an accountability gap that neither the courts nor the GMCA have yet fully closed.