Birmingham council leaders' two asks for Andy Burnham to end city's 'biggest crisis'

Birmingham's council leaders have made two key demands of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham as the city grapples with what they describe as its biggest crisis.

Council Leader Roger Harmer and Deputy Leader Julien Pritchard, both from the Green Party, addressed regional business leaders at the Connections for Prosperity annual conference to outline their urgent requests for government support.

The pair are determined to lobby Burnham for two things: support to build council houses locally and government help to tackle Birmingham's acute housing shortage.

Harmer, who represents Acocks Green, told delegates including developers and investors that the shortage of affordable and social housing was the single biggest issue facing the city. "I'd say to give us collectively as a city the opportunity to sort out our housing problems," he said when asked what he would ask of the PM. "That includes building more social housing. Give us the resources and we will get on with it."

He painted a stark picture of the city's housing crisis. "Forty years ago we had close to 120,000 council homes for rent. We are now down to 57,000 or so," Harmer explained. "We are a city with over 10,000 children living in temporary accommodation. The biggest hotel in my ward, Acocks Green, is essentially a temporary accommodation centre along with large nursing homes. It is a stain on our society that we have let that happen by not investing enough year on year."

Pritchard echoed these concerns, describing housing as a massive challenge rooted in affordability that could only be resolved by building more genuinely affordable social rent homes. "That is top of our priority list," he said. "The only issue is that building houses of that type at scale is not something that can be done in a year."

Pritchard, councillor for Druids Heath and Monyhull, highlighted additional challenges, noting that the vast majority of Birmingham's council homes have not met decent homes standards for some time.

Burnham has previously stated his intention to deliver the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period.