Bev Craig – Greater Manchester mayoral candidate for the Labour Party

The Labour Party announced Bev Craig as their candidate. What are she and the Labour Party planning for Greater Manchester? We take a look at the manifesto.

We aim to update this page when new manifesto points come to our attention.

Bev Craig’s full manifesto can be found here: Bev For Mayor Manifesto.

Where no link is provided, the points are taken from Labour Party press releases.

Education

Opportunity for every child and young person: supporting families from birth with baby boxes, improving schools and helping young people into training and apprenticeships.
Starting from birth, Labour will introduce baby boxes, establish a new Greater Manchester Family of Schools to bring schools together and improve results, and provide joined-up support through training and apprenticeships to help young people find the right career for them.
A Youth Centre in every town in Greater Manchester
Additional support for care leavers
A work placement for every young person by the age of 18 A Gen-Z
Commission so young people are part of the solution, with their voices heard on issues including work, transport and health

Environment

No specific plans published to date.

Flooding or potholes

A Facebook post that promises ‘fixed potholes’ across Greater Manchester.

High Street regeneration

Bev has promised to:

Clean up our high streets – with a targeted clampdown on vape shop and other overbearing firms with tougher licensing action, and compulsory purchase powers to force the sale of derelict, eyesore properties and bring them back into community ownership
Protect pubs – with a bespoke new strategy to safeguard treasured local boozers and allow for community ownership to keep them open in our local areas.
Back business with business rate holidays – to incentivise good high-street enterprises that keep everyday goods and services affordable
Stand up for hospitality – to ease the strain on loved local eateries, by hosting a Greater Manchester hospitality summit, coordinated work across boroughs, and a support offer for independent hospitality firms
Put £180 million into our towns to drive regeneration – with Stockport, Oldham, Old Trafford, Ashton and Middleton among those to benefit.
Backed by £20 million of new cash, a ‘Good Growth High Streets Fund’ will give areas the chance to bid for money to revive their local centres, and a new ‘Fix It Fund’ will help sort neighbourhood gripes like neglected alleyways, tired flowerbeds, faded murals, or broken play equipment.
Pride in every town centre: supporting local businesses and regenerating town centres across every borough.
Bring pride to every town centre by expanding the Good Growth Fund so that every borough sees the gains and every community sees the benefit. A new £20 million Good Growth High Street Fund will support small businesses, bring empty units back into use and drive town centre regeneration.

Housing

Bev Pledges to:

Expand A Bed Every Night, ensuring every borough can provide emergency accommodation alongside wraparound support.
Prevent homelessness before it happens by strengthening early intervention services, particularly for young people and families.
Reduce the number of families living in temporary accommodation, helping to keep families closer to their communities wherever possible.
Deliver more genuinely affordable and social homes to tackle one of the root causes of homelessness.
Strengthen partnerships with charities, recognising organisations like Loaves & Fishes as essential partners in helping people rebuild their lives.
Support people into stable housing, employment and better health, recognising that homelessness is about much more than providing a bed.
Offer a good home you can afford: delivering a golden era of council housebuilding, standing up for renters and helping people off the streets and into secure homes.
Deliver 50,000 new council and genuinely affordable homes by 2039, giving priority to Greater Manchester residents for homes built with local funding. She will stand up for renters, including by establishing a commission on rent controls, and work to ensure people sleeping rough can access the housing and support they need.
Always brownfield land first, with a new brownfield land fund and a devolved remediation fund to unlock the trickiest sites.

Migration

No specific plans published to date.

Transport

Expand the Bee Network – creating new bus routes across the network and backing the next phase of Metrolink tram expansion to Stockport.
Bring trains into the network – to create seamless travel for passengers by extending the ‘tap in and out’ scheme to pay for travel.
A bigger, more affordable Bee Network: freezing bus and Metrolink fares, extending free travel to 16 to 18-year-olds and expanding the network.
Widen cheap and cost-free travel – building on her announcement last week to give every 11 to 18-year-old a free bus pass, Bev will extend free passes to elderly and disabled passengers, meaning a family with two children going to secondary school will save £20 per week.
Fix our roads – through a dedicated fund to tackle troublesome potholes across the region, and save motorists’ money by preventing damage to their vehicles.

Policing and public safety

Bev said she would roll out a partnership approach across Greater Manchester through a new Neighbourhood Guarantee, bringing together Greater Manchester Police, councils and housing providers to take faster action against antisocial behaviour.
Her plans also include expanding neighbourhood policing so every community has a stronger local police presence, speeding up the seizure and destruction of nuisance off-road bikes, using money seized from criminals to improve neighbourhoods most affected by crime and antisocial behaviour, and investing in more youth clubs, community sport and arts activities to give young people safe places to go and trusted adults to turn to.
Alongside this, Bev will work with partners to tackle fly-tipping, disrupt drug-related crime, make town centres and the night-time economy safer, and deliver a new action plan to reduce violence against women and girls.
A place where everyone feels safe: putting more neighbourhood police officers on our streets, with a new Neighbourhood Guarantee to tackle antisocial behaviour.