Green Party unveils plan to revolutionise Greater Manchester’s high streets

As part of its plan to win the Greater Manchester mayoral race, the Green Party has unveiled a plan for the county’s high streets.

Too many town centres across Greater Manchester have been left behind.

That’s why today we’re announcing bold policies to bring high streets back to life:

An Empty Shops Team to help councils bring vacant properties back into use.
A £10 million Community Development Fund… pic.twitter.com/J4obABdw1s

— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) July 7, 2026

Green is high streets ahead

The Greens’ high street plan includes:

An Empty Shops Team to help councils bring vacant properties back into use.
A £10 million Community Development Fund to help communities take control of empty buildings.
New Town Centre Partnership Agreements to drive coordinated action across Greater Manchester.

Manchester certainly became a richer city under mayor Andy Burnham, but there’s far more to Greater Manchester than the centre. As such, the county is in need of a plan which thinks about high streets beyond Oxford Road and Deansgate.

As the Greens announced:

The Green Party’s candidate for mayor Geraldine Coggins announces today she will revitalise high streets by bringing empty spaces back into use for the community, to support local economies and to fix the failure of Labour’s developer and profit first model which has concentrated growth in Manchester city centre with unaffordable luxury flats.

Speaking further, the Greens’ mayoral candidate Geraldine Coggins, said:

40 years of neoliberalism has blighted the places we call home.

As mayor, I will make our high streets once again the beating heart of our communities. I will create a new task force to give the boroughs the expertise and co-ordination they need to use their powers to take over empty shops and to end the scandal of land banking. The mayor’s investment fund will be used to help communities buy empty spaces to make all of our high streets the economic, social and cultural hearts of our towns.

No more empty shops. People over profit. I will end the failed Labour model which puts developers profits above people and communities.

Andy Burnham has also spoken about ending neoliberalism; at the same time, he’s refusing to renationalise key utilities or industries. Private companies being intimately involved in every aspect of public life is the problem, Andy.

Introducing ‘greater public controls’ might lessen the problem for a while, but we all know these companies will claw back any power you take away from them as long as they’re allowed to keep their foot in the door.

GREATER Manchester

Speaking more about the broader county of Greater Manchester, the Green Party has said:

High streets in towns across Greater Manchester are struggling as growth and investment is piled into the city centre.

Centre for Cities (2025) analysed the high streets of the UK’s 62 largest cities and towns. Wigan was ranked 8th highest in terms of proportion of empty high street shops, with 16.3% of shopfronts lying empty.

Geraldine will set up an Empty Shops Team to enable the boroughs to make best use of the powers they have, including Compulsory Purchase Orders, to take over empty properties and this will be co-ordinated through Town Centre Partnership Agreements.

The Greens will also set up a Community Development Fund to help councils and community groups buy vacant properties.

The party added:

Today’s high street announcement follows Geraldine’s pledge on Friday to deliver 20,000 genuinely affordable and publicly owned homes.

We covered that announcement here.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore