A Budget for the North – the view from Manchester.

Today’s Budget was a good day for the North, but the bigger shift is in who gets to make the decisions.

I’ve spent the afternoon going through the Red Book from our Manchester office. Strip away the headlines and this is the most serious attempt at fiscal devolution I’ve seen.

Here’s what matters for the North:

🔹 Every mayor will get a share of income tax from 2028.
🔹 Mayors get a 20% share of locally retained business rates from April 2027, with local government keeping all of it by the end of the decade.
🔹 A £1.5bn borrowing facility for mayoral authorities, so they can back development directly.
🔹 Proposed business rates retention zones for Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, the North East, Tees Valley, York and North Yorkshire, and Hull. West and South Yorkshire are not in the first wave.
🔹 An extra £1.5bn for social and affordable homes, with council housing at the front of the queue.
🔹 Small brownfield housing sites exempted from Biodiversity Net Gain, which is a real help for urban infill across our towns and cities.

For years the North’s argument has been simple: give us the tools and we’ll deliver. This Budget gives mayors many of those tools.

But it’s a slow burn. The borrowing facility doesn’t go live until April 2028, and the income tax share starts the same year. Build costs are at a record high, and the Treasury says so itself.

So the next 18 months matter. Councils need the people and skills to use these powers. Developers need to see faster, more confident decisions on the ground. And investors need a pipeline of schemes that are ready to go when the money arrives.

The places that prepare now will be the ones that benefit most.

Liam Didsbury is a Partner at Lowick Hedry and leads Lowick Hedry’s operation in Manchester