Manchester housing loan review includes £55m for City owner’s firms

A Greater Manchester scrutiny committee is to examine a housing loan fund that lent about £55 million to three property companies ultimately controlled by Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour. The planned review was reported by The Guardian in October.

The loans were made in 2017, when Andy Burnham, now prime minister, was mayor of Greater Manchester. Burnham chaired two meetings at which the loans were approved, but the decisions were made publicly by all members of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), not by him alone, the BBC reported.

The loans formed part of a much larger programme. The Greater Manchester Housing Investment Loan Fund began in 2015 with £300 million in government funding and has lent more than £1 billion to about 50 developers, according to the BBC.

Committee chair John Leech has questioned the transparency of the approval process and why apparently successful businesses needed to borrow public money. His comments to the BBC were reported by The Guardian. The BBC said there was no suggestion of wrongdoing in relation to the loans.

The GMCA said it was supporting the committee’s inquiries. It told The Guardian that lending decisions were taken publicly, the fund was open to developers who met its criteria, and no viable scheme had been turned down.